THE FIRST EVER BRAZILIAN MOUNTAIN BIKE WOMAN TO QUALIFY FOR THE OLYMPICS

Jaqueline Mourão was born in 1975 in the mountainous city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where she grew up with a very active lifestyle by being part of many local clubs for swimming, gymnastics, athletics and playing many team sports. She began cycling at age 15 and entered her first mountain bike competition one year later. She represented Brazil for the first time as a downhill racer at the 1997 World Mountain Bike Championships in Château d'Oex, Switzerland. The year after, she had a serious leg injury due to a
crash in a training run just before the 1998 National Downhill Championships. From then on, she decided to focus only on endurance training and racing mountain bike, triathlon and running competitions. She did this while studying and working at the Federal University of Minas Gerais where she completed a master's degree in physical activity. In 2002, the Olympic Solidarity program offered her a scholarship to be part of the UCI World Cycling Center (CMC) in Aigle, Switzerland, as an assistant coach. This also was an opportunity for her to extend her racing ability with a full season of competition in Europe. After this successful race season, Jaqueline started dreaming of being the first ever Brazilian women to compete at the Summer Olympic Games in the sport of Mountain Biking. She realized her dream the next year by finishing 9th in the UCI World Ranking points system with a strong 8th place finish at the 2003 World Mountain Bike Marathon Championships. In addition to qualifying for the Olympic Games of Athens in 2004, her two year experience with the CMC has given her the opportunity to learn to speak English and French as well. In 2005, Jaqueline became the first cyclist in brazilian history to ever win a World Cup by crossing the finish line in Mont-Sainte-Anne ahead of the double olympic champion, the italian Paola Pezzo, during the mountain bike World Cup Marathon in Canada.
In 2007, the athlete was fourth at Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro and in 2008, she represent Brazil at the Summer Olympics Games in Beijing. At the end of this year, she announced her retirement in mountain bike and began to focus 100% on cross-country skiing.
However, it is a mistake to think that she would leave the bike. The athlete has created the project "MTeenB" and each year promotes national and international events to support young Brazilian athletes who want to build a life in this sport.
Jaqueline, now with four Olympic Games participations (Vancouver 2010), continues to pursue excellence in sport and she has already an eye on the Winter Olympics in Sochi (2014).