Kate
Courtney
United States
·
MTB
Date of birth | October 29, 1995 |
|---|---|
Birthplace | Palo Alto, California |
Age | 30 |
Nationality | United States |
Career start | 2013 |
Disciplines | MTB |
Born in 1995, Courtney grew up riding tandem with her dad in the mountain biking mecca of Marin County, just over the Golden Gate Bridge from her birthplace of San Francisco.
It wasn’t until she was 14 that she started seeing mountain biking as a competitive option, though. She started racing in 2009 and won the XC Junior National Championships the next year.
In 2012 she became the first US Junior woman to win a UCI XC World Cup stop. Courtney’s momentum accelerated in 2013, the year she started college (Stanford) and signed her first pro contract.
That year she claimed victories at the Pan-American Championships, the US XC and Short Track Nationals, the UCI World Cup stop at Mont Sainte Anne, and she swept the cross-country and short-track disciplines at the Collegiate Mountain Biking National Championships.
Courtney finished eighth overall in the UCI World Cup series in 2014, her first season of U23 competition. In 2015, she jumped up to fourth overall, and she boosted to second in 2016. Along the way, she won her second Pan-Am Championship, earned more US and Collegiate titles, and claimed her first U23 World Cup win (Cairns, Australia 2016).
After winning the American national U23 title, claiming victory in three of the five UCI XCO U23 World Cup events and claiming a silver at the World Championships in 2017, urrently, Courtney has stepped up to the Elite level on the World Cup scene for 2018 and secured here first major elite level win with victory in the famed Cape Epic marathon stage race in South Africa, alongside team-mate Annika Langvad.
The 2019 season saw Courtney switch from the Specialized team to Scott-SRAM MTB Racing, where she's competing and training alongside the king of cross-country, Nino Schurter. Look out for signs of Courtney reaping the benefits of her new association with one of the most polished outfits in XCO racing as she begins to train her focus on achieving her dream of winning a medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
Kate Courtney continues to compete at the top of the cross-country world
© Bartek Woliński/Red Bull Content Pool
Courtney with her World Cup series trophy, won in her second elite season
© Bartek Woliński/Red Bull Content Pool
Courtney secured that overall victory in front of home fans in Snowshoe
© Bartek Woliński/Red Bull Content Pool
Courtney stays grounded by training on home roads in Marin County
© Long Nguyen/Red Bull Content Pool