Kate Courtney Becomes First U.S. Mountain Biker to Secure Olympic Slot for 2020
Last year, Kate Courtney stunned the cycling scene when she won the MTB World Championship title in her first season racing in the elite field at the age of 22. And she’s only been building on her success this year and proving that she deserved to wear rainbow stripes.
She started the season off with an impressive streak of World Cup wins, and while she didn’t hold on to the rainbow jersey this year at the World Championships in Mont Sainte Anne, Quebec, her fifth-place finish was enough to secure her an automatic spot on Team USA heading into the Olympics next summer in Tokyo. Courtney’s World Cup overall win, secured the following weekend in Snowshoe, West Virginia, only topped off her impressive run.
“I’m really proud of that as well as the progress I’ve made as a racer this season,” she says.
And yes, that includes her Worlds finish in Quebec—a race where she says she started strong and fast, but was unable to hold the pace before dropping back.
“It was an interesting moment, crossing the finish line,” she said. “I had entered the race hoping to fight for a medal and didn’t ride my best, to be honest.”
She ended up finishing fifth: Former World Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot of France finished first, while Switzerland’s Jolanda Neff and Australia’s Bec McConnell rounded out the podium.
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On one hand, Courtney admits, her placing was disappointing. But on the other, it helped her achieve her lifelong dream of making it onto the Olympic team, since the U.S. would qualify for Tokyo with a top-eight finish at the World Championships.
“In 2016, I remember staying awake until midnight when the Olympic selection was posted to see if I was picked to fill a discretionary spot, and I wasn’t,” she said. “So it’s pretty crazy to be in such a different position [with an automatic qualifying slot] going into the 2020 Games.”
So how did Courtney make such huge strides in just a few years? Was it the result of a complete overhaul—say, new coach, new way of training, or new diet?
None of the above.
“I’ve worked with my strength coach, my cycling coach, my nutritionist and my sports psychologist for two years at least,” she said. “I think this is one of the first seasons where the larger structure of everything stayed the same, which allowed us to go in and make some finer, smaller changes.”
First, she and her team identified her goals for the year—say, hitting one of the Olympic qualifying standards, like a top-10 in the World Cup Overall—and plotted out how her gym workouts and other training could help her achieve that.
“It’s been really helpful to be with the same people and not be making huge changes,” she said. “My body has adapted really well to that.”
She did make some small tweaks, though, but considers them more of a progression rather than a change.
“I make a lot of small tweaks to my mountain bike technique, working on getting more efficient and not losing free speed when possible. It’s so many tiny adjustments,” she says. “I practice a lot and continue to think about how I’m doing each skill and tackling obstacles, and it’s made me faster.”
As for her gym routine? Depending on the time of year, she trains in the gym three or four times a week, adding more weight in the offseason and focusing more on maintenance while racing.
One thing she wants to make clear, though, is all the crazy feats you see on her Instagram—think flipping weights while balancing on a ball—aren’t the bulk of her program.
A post shared by Kate Courtney (@kateplusfate) on Jun 24, 2019 at 10:00am PDT
“I love weight flipping—it’s a great mental and physical activation exercise that works your grip strength, but it’s also at most five minutes of a nearly two-hour workout in the gym,” she says. “A lot of what I do in the gym is just injury prevention and stretching and activation.”
The same rise-and-grind mentality applies to other parts of her wellness regimen, too: She meditates every morning using the Headspace app, and writes in a gratitude journal every night before bed. “It’s a great wind-down activity and keeps things in perspective,” she adds.
When it comes to her nutrition, she focuses on whole foods that will fuel her performance, but isn’t above the occasional baked good or taco after a long ride. It’s about the long-term gains, not a short-term fix.
So what will she change heading into Tokyo 2020? Not much.
“It’s not one year or one day of hard work. It’s about years and years of working on making improvements,” she says. “My nutritionist always says that performance is like pounding a rock with another rock. When the rock breaks, it wasn’t because of that single hit, it was because of the thousands before that. That’s how it is in bike racing. You have to keep showing up. When the rock does break, it looks like this magical thing you did one day, but really, it was the accumulation of many, many things that you did differently.”
It’s business as usual for the next 12 months, with an Olympic medal as the main goal. And Courtney thinks it’s within reach.
“This year was a perfect preparation for the Olympics in the World Championship jersey and having to perform. For me, pressure comes more from personal expectations and my own desire to achieve results,” she says. “I think it’s a similar level of pressure, and I’ve made a lot of progress in terms of how you not only survive, but thrive in it.”
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