Kate Courtney: Life as a Mountain Bike Champion, Training for the Olympics, and the Value of Competition

Kate Courtney is a professional mountain bike racer for the Scott-SRAM MTB Racing Team. She is the reigning UCI World Cup Overall Champion, the 2018 World Champion in women’s cross-country mountain biking, and a member of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team. Kate has also earned multiple Continental and National Championship titles. She is a member of the USA Cycling National Team and a Red Bull Athlete.

Kate grew up in Marin County, California, at the base of Mount Tamalpais, the birthplace of mountain biking. Though she was introduced to the sport at a young age – riding on the back of her dad’s tandem mountain bike – her race career started as a freshman on the Branson High School MTB Team. In 2018, Kate became the first American in 17 years to win an Elite XCO World Championship, only the fourth American woman to do so, and had the honor of bringing the title back to Marin and the roots of the sport.

Besides training and racing her bike, Kate enjoys yoga, skiing, hiking and writing. Kate is known for her insightful and clear voice, and her articles about being a professional athlete have been published in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Outside Magazine, VeloNews and Cycling Tips. Kate holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University.

Kate joins us to talk about life as a mountain bike champion, getting a second year to train for the Olympics, and how having her family as part of the team makes the whole process joyful.

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