Henrique
Avancini
Brazil
·
MTB
Date of birth | 30 March 1989 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Petrópolis, Brazil |
Age | 37 |
Nationality | Brazil |
Career start | 1997 |
Disciplines | Mountainbike Cross Country |
Henrique Avancini was born and raised in Petrópolis, near Rio de Janeiro. He got his first bike at the age of eight, when his father, Ruy, recycled a large 22" broken bike frame, transforming it into a special size – 12.5" – just for his son.
Henrique quickly found his balance and, growing up in the countryside, was able to hone his MTB cross-country skills. With hard work and determination, the Brazilian became the first rider in his country to win the national championship in all categories, from Junior through to elite level.
Now thriving on the world stage, Henrique continues to develop his skills and is always looking to push his limits and better his results. He participated at both Games events in 2012 and 2016, and is now always in the reckoning for honours at events around the globe, whether World Cup XCO races or multi-day stage race epics.
2017 was the year Henrique really started to make waves in the normally European-dominated XCO rankings, when he claimed his first World Cup top-10 finish in Andorra and finished an eye-catching fourth at the World Championships in Cairns, Australia to end the year fifth in the UCI's rankings.
Henrique really kicked on from that result during the 2018 season, where he scored a first win in the new XC Short Track format and scored two podium finishes in the main XCO races during the World Cup season before winning the UCI XCM Marathon World Championships - his first world title – to end the season ranked as the second best cross country racer in the world behind the great Nino Schurter.
In 2019 he had another brilliant season, where he showed his incredible power to win and scored a run of top-three finishes in XCC, as well as claiming his first pair of third-place finishes in XCO, again ending the year ranked second overall by the UCI.
Still improving his riding and fitness every year, Henrique achieved his long-held goal of winning a UCI XCO World Cup race during the double-header 2020 World Cup weekend in Nové Město, where he timed his sprint to perfection to take a brilliant, emotional victory in the second full XCO race of the weekend. We're sure it's the first of many.
In 2021, the UCI MTB World Championship started a new tradition of awarding medals for the XC Short Track race. Henrique clinched the silver medal, landing on the podium again.
For 2023, Henrique will be taking on the new challenge of leading his own team – Caloi Henrique Avancini Racing Team – to head up an all-Brazilian team in World Cup racing for the very first time. That move soon paid off, with victory at the Glasgow edition of the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships.