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Kate Courtney on her route to cross-country glory
The 2018 XCO world champion and 2019 World Cup series winner, shares her voyage from tandem rides with her father to elite cross-country racing.
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World Championship and World Cup titles require a certain single-mindedness and unwavering commitment. However, for Kate Courtney this level of focus towards racing mountain bikes came slowly, and thus more surely. From Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California, to the very top of the sport, this is the pathway that led Courtney to become one of the best cross-country racers in world.
Courtney’s lightning quick ascent from U23 sensation to Elite World Champion is, quite rightly, well-known. She's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to cross-country racing, with three XCO World Cup wins, two XCC (Short Track) World Cup wins, Cape Epic glory, rainbow stripes, American and Pan-American titles all flooding her palmarès. That, and her sparkly bikes and sparkling personality, make her one of the most famous faces in the sport.
Courtney after winning the 2019 World Cup Overall in Snowshoe
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
But no athlete just appears from nowhere. There's always a long and winding road that brings them to the front of international races and the front of magazines, websites and our collective consciousness. As the iceberg analogy goes, what we see is only the tip. Courtney’s route to the top started long before she was a U23 rider with a professional contract. Her roots in the sport go much deeper, and along the pathway from playtime to pro-time, the directions she chose dictated the rider she has become.
Get a glimpse into Courtney's mindset when it comes to competing in her sport below:
01
Growing up in the birthplace of mountain biking
Both in terms of her home and her natural surroundings, environment was key to Courtney’s upbringing and her development as an athlete.
She grew up at the base of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California, right where mountain biking was founded back in the 1970s. You may think, therefore, that the sport in which she has now excelled internationally was part of her life from a very young age. However, it wasn't mountain biking per se but the general love of being outdoors that captured Courtney’s passion and enthusiasm as a young girl.
Kate Courtney training on home roads in Marin County
© Long Nguyen/Red Bull Content Pool
"I think it was more than anything that Marin is a place where being outside is really valued. We have a tonne of open space and really iconic views, we have that big mountain to climb on foot or on bikes, and I just remember growing up spending a lot of time outside and on the mountain and falling in love with that."
Besides the outside was the tight-knit family unit on the inside. The Courtneys were, and still are, an active and supportive family who revel in each other’s company. Cycling together created a special bond between Courtney and her father, and this relationship with bikes, and with each other, has been a constant. The two of them would head out at the weekends to explore Marin on an old tandem. It was a way for Courtney to spend time with those she loved as much as it was doing something that she loved. Dad first, bikes second. It’s probably still this way, although bikes are a much closer second these days!
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“For me it unfolded very slowly. I started riding when I was young with my dad – I have pictures of us on an old tandem – and we just used to get out and explore in Marin."
Courtney still rides with her dad and still loves the simple pleasure of riding home roads, taking a trail up Mount Tamalpais and appreciating the beauty of her backyard. These things certainly aid Courtney’s professional career, but it takes a lot more than this to make it as a pro. So, what was the next step?
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Enjoy the stripped-back action as XC mountain biker Kate Courtney tears up the trails in Sedona, Arizona.
02
(Not just) a high-school hobby
"It wasn’t until high school that I actually discovered that competitive mountain biking existed at all."
That’s right, the 2018 Elite World Champion didn’t know that racing mountain bikes was a thing until she was in high school. Courtney was a cross-country runner and, having decided that running around a track sounded a dumb way to spend her spring, was looking for an alternative way to cross-train. Enter mountain bike racing. Courtney joined her school’s mountain bike team and started taking part in the NICA (National Interscholastic Cycling Association) programme.
Kate Courtney takes on a World Cup race early in her career
© Jan Kasl/Red Bull Content Pool
"They have such a big program surrounding high-school mountain biking now in the US and I was fortunate enough to grow up really close to one of the founding leagues, so every weekend they have thousands of kids racing."
The racing wasn’t particularly competitive and the standard was very mixed, but that’s a lot of what Courtney loved about this new sport: no one was left out, and actually the more kids racing the better it was. At this point Courtney was unaware of a world of mountain biking beyond this local league, but the racing itself was something that she found fun and addictive.
Courtney is never short of a smile even after a hard race
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
"I had no idea what the World Cup looked like – I had no concept of it – but I loved racing and I think that was the first thing I was really hooked on."
Courtney took a big old bite of bait and fell for cross-country racing, hook, line and sinker! From there it was a case of seeking out new opportunities to race, stepping up from school to national series and then National Championships. The route to the top was never clearly mapped out, it was a case of exploring each level and each opportunity, and moving up one step at a time.
03
The accidental World Cup debut
A crucial step on the pathway to becoming a professional athlete was her first trip to race in Europe and to race at World Cup level.
"I actually kind of went by accident because I had exams during the Junior camp so they sent me on the World Cup trip with a couple of the U23 men which was a huge opportunity for me.”
A Juniors World Cup debut came in 2012 with a move to the U23s in 2014
© Jan Kasl/Red Bull Content Pool
Courtney had experienced success at home in the USA, but racing in Europe is a whole new game, where you really have to level up to compete at the front. Courtney’s entrance onto the world stage was pretty impressive: despite having not long arrived in Europe, being jet-lagged and inexperienced, Courtney finished top 10 in Nové Město. She was the first American junior to achieve this at World Cup level for a very long time and this filled her with a sense of excitement and possibility.
“What could be possible if I trained really hard?"
Kate Courtney trains hard in the gym
© Jesse DeYoung/Red Bull Media House
This initial success was juxtaposed with the following weekend’s result as Courtney recorded a DNF (for the first and only time so far in her career) after a crash at the start and a struggle with the technicality of the track.
"I couldn’t ride any of the features. It was really a lesson in how competitive and how challenging from a mental, physical, technical, tactical perspective that European World Cup racing is."
These two contrasting outcomes actually both cemented Courtney’s decision to commit to being the best that she could be. She glimpsed her potential to be world-class, and the potential for improvement. For someone who'd excelled on home turf, this was an important spotlight on the opportunity to advance and develop, and that was a really enthralling prospect for Courtney.
Courtney focused and committed
© Bartek Woliński
She'd seen how good she was and how good she could be. This constant striving for improvement, and the ability to make a failure a fuel for betterment, are attributes that have stayed with Courtney throughout her career. Following that those races she thought “this is really hard and I’m out of my league, but I someday want to be in that league.” It was a seminal trip.
04
Education – the helpful handbrake
Even after that Junior World Cup trip (and a subsequent trip where a podium in Albstadt World Cup really demonstrated to her that she was able to be competitive at this level and potentially transfer this to Elite racing) pursuing it as a profession was still not Courtney’s raison d’être.
From high school, Courtney went on to begin a four-year university degree in Human Biology at Stanford University. At the same time, she signed her first professional contract. So, she had officially made it as a pro, but the thought of this needing to be a long-term career with security and singular focus was still not there.
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“I think for me that was actually really healthy and positive because it gave me time to come into my own as a mountain biker."
Courtney’s education was formative in two key ways. Firstly, it was a timely temper on her burgeoning professional cycling career. It offered an alternative outlet, another focus and a barrier to over-training. The trap of becoming too blinkered too soon is a one that many young athletes fall into and it can so often lead to burnout.
Courtney says that if she was exposed to the volume of training she did when she was moving up to the junior to U23 ranks, she would probably not still be in the sport. Studying acted as a natural brake, meaning Courtney entered elite racing a little more slowly which gave her time to discover what this career path could look like before she dived in full-time.
Courtney's love of racing shines through every race
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
Secondly, it gave her options.
“Being a full-time college student and graduating with this degree really showed me that I was choosing mountain biking,” she comments. “It wasn’t something I HAD to do, it was something I wanted to do because I loved it and I’m possessed by the curiosity of what might be possible.”
For Courtney, her university education enabled her to see that she could have a happy and rewarding life doing something else, but that finally focusing fully on being an athlete was a very conscious and positive choice without pressure or necessity.
05
Sparkle On Scholarship
Since 2021, Kate Courtney in partnership with her trade team bike manufacturer SCOTT and associate sponsors Syncros, SRAM, and RockShox has in collaboration with the United States National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) run a scholarship scheme that helps assist American students in balancing college studies with a cycle racing career. This scholarship, which is called Sparkle On Scholarship, offers financial assistance and mentorship from Courtney herself to those students selected for the scholarship.
“I know from experience that the transition to college as a student-athlete is often difficult and wanted to create this scholarship as a way to help with the challenges of balancing college studies and racing.”
06
From full-time to World Champ in no time
Although Courtney signed her first professional contract in 2013, she didn’t become a full-time athlete and commit to a full World Cup season until 2017. The following year she was Elite World Champion!
Courtney takes home the gold for the USA
© Bartek Woliński
This stand-out achievement didn’t come completely out of the blue, for Courtney had racked up an impressive number of U23 World Cup wins, the overall title, a Cape Epic victory and then several Elite World Cup top 10s along the way. In 2019, Courtney was clearly the best female athlete on the Elite circuit. A World Cup overall series title would come after three XCO World Cup wins in Nové Město, Albstadt and Les Gets. At the latter two venues she would also win the Short Track (XCC) races.
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07
Fighting for form
Coming into 2020, Courtney would have been full of confidence, only for the pandemic to hit. The trip to Tokyo was delayed to 2021 and that meant Courtney was going into that 2021 season with a reset in condition.
9 min
Kate Courtney
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Anything less than a gold would have been a disappointment in 2020 but by July 2021 when Tokyo took place, Courtney was very much an outside bet for a podium place. A fractured arm suffered in Nové Město in May dented her chances even more after not being able to ride on her mountain bike. She'd finish 15th, a good result under the circumstances.
"It wasn’t my best race, but I think there’s no other event where you cross the line in a less than ideal position, and still feel really honored and humbled to be here representing your country and representing your family, and for me, it’s just been really an honour to be here in the first place.”
The 2022 and 2023 seasons have seen Courtney fighting for form and good condition at the World Cups. XCC and XCO winning honours at the 2023 Pan-American Championships in Brazil have been her standout results. Outside racing her home life is well and truly settled with Courtney marrying her partner Will Patterson in September 2022.
Kate Courtney racing in 2023 at the Val di Sole World Cup
© Karolina Krasinka/Red Bull Content Pool
The last few years haven't produced the consistency of results that the now 27-year-old Courtney probably wants but not that you'd know from the ever-smiling American. Everything is still a step-by-step process; a natural pathway of organic growth that has helped to ease Courtney into her professional career and install the perspective and passion that shines through year on year.
Learn more about Kate Courtney
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