 I don't know if this is a funny way to start, but at heart I feel like I'm a cowgirl. I mean if someone was to ask me to describe myself, I think cyclist would be just about the last. There's too many other fun things in life to do, like my flowers call, or the horses call, or you gotta go for a motorcycle ride. Inga began competing as a runner at her Reno, Nevada high school. She won nine state running titles and went on to attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to run and study engineering. As a freshman, she finished fourth in the cross-country national championships. In 1984, when some men in a local bicycle shop told her that the first ever women's tour to France would be too tough for women, Inga was determined to prove them wrong. She bought a racing bike and began training. Amazingly, Inga won the first five cycling races that she ever entered and she qualified for the Olympic trials. She went on to finish 21st in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics road race. Although she never made it to the inaugural Tour de France Feminine, she came back in the 1986 and 1989 tours and finished third overall both times. Due to over-training and questionable directions by national team coaches, Inga became seriously ill while battling chronic fatigue syndrome. After recovering and relying on her own healthy training methods, she won the cycling world trials and qualified for the 1985 World Championships in road racing. She went on to win 10 national championships between 1987 and 1993 in road racing, individual time trials, and team time trials. She set a national record in the 1991 individual time trials. Inga finished second in three world championships, 1987 and 1990 in team time trials and 1991 in road racing. She competed as a road racer in two more Olympics, 1988 in Seoul and 1992 in Barcelona. All I can say is I guess that I'm pleased with myself in the sense of everything that I've gone through in the last couple of months. I feel like I came through it and I still had that fighting spirit and I thought the spirit of the Olympics is to race as hard as you can race and it's the spirit of the competition. So in that sense I felt like I came here and I gave it my all and yeah it's disappointing but at least I can walk home and say I really try. Inga finished first place overall in the 1988 Coors Classic general category and she won the 1990 Aura Ida women's challenge overall, which was the longest women's stage race in the world. By 1992 the U.S. national rankings had Inga ranked first overall. After winning the 1993 U.S. women's national championship road race, Thompson abruptly severed all ties with cycling. In 2012 she emerged in the public eye again and began sharing her concerns about the sport based on her extensive experiences. From her meteoric debut on the American scene in 1984 to her final major race, a dominating victory in the 1993 U.S. women's national championship road race, Inga proved herself to be one of the greatest women's racers the sport has ever seen.