Rebecca Twigg


Rebecca Twigg is an American former racing cyclist, who won six world track cycling championships in the individual pursuit. She also won 16 US championships and two Olympic medals, the silver medal in the 1984 road race in Los Angeles, and a bronze medal in the pursuit in Barcelona in 1992.
Twigg won the first three editions of the Women's Challenge on the road. She trained at the University of Washington in Seattle beginning at the age of 14 and met personal coach Eddie Borysewicz three years later.
Twigg was a three-time Olympian. However, her final Olympic appearance, in Atlanta in 1996, ended in controversy when she quit the team in a disagreement with the coach Chris Carmichael and the U.S. Cycling Federation. The federation had invested in the development of the so-called SuperBike. Twigg, after using the bike earlier in the Games, refused to ride it, citing poor individual fit and claiming that pressure from the staff on her to use the SuperBike and their refusal to grant accreditation to her personal coach, Eddie Borysewicz, left her defocused.

Post-cycling life

After retiring from competitive cycling, Twigg earned an associate degree in computer science and worked at various jobs in the information technology industry. She married twice, having a daughter with her second husband. She later quit her jobs and became homeless while staying in Seattle, and as of 2019 has been homeless for the past five years. Her first personal encounter with homelessness occurred when she was 15 years old and was kicked out of her house by her mother.

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