Abbott at the 2016 Le Samyn des Dames
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Personal information | |
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Full name | Mara Katherine Abbott |
Born |
Boulder, Colorado, United States |
November 14, 1985
Height | 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) |
Weight | 115 lb (52 kg) |
Team information | |
Current team | Retired |
Discipline | Road |
Role | Rider |
Rider type | Climbing specialist |
Amateur team(s) | |
2015 | LA Sweat |
Professional team(s) | |
2007 | Webcor Builders |
2008–2009 | HTC-Highroad Women |
2010 | Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12 |
2011 | Diadora-Pasta Zara |
2013 | Exergy TWENTY16 |
2014 | UnitedHealthcare Women’s Team |
2015–2016 | Wiggle High5 |
Major wins | |
Stage races
One day races
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Stage races
One day races
Mara Katherine Abbott (born November 14, 1985) is a U.S. professional women's bicycle racer who rides on the Wiggle High5 team. In 2010, Abbott became the first U.S. cyclist ever to win the Giro Donne, one of the Grand Tours of women's bicycle racing. Abbott retired after the 2016 Olympic Games road race.
Abbott was born in and, as of 2016, still lives in Boulder, Colorado. She was a competitive swimmer, primarily specializing in distance freestyle races, at Whitman College, which is where she took up road bicycle racing as a springtime activity. After competing for Whitman in two straight National College Cycling Association Division II championships, where the team won back-to-back championships in both the team time trial and the team omnium, and Abbott won back-to-back championships in the road race and also won the criterium and the individual omnium in 2006, Abbott placed fifth in the USA National Championship Women's Road Race. She also won back-to-back championships in the Mount Evans Hill Climb in 2005 and 2006.
Abbott turned professional in 2007 and joined the Webcor Builders team. In addition to a repeat of her college successes, she won one stage and the overall title in the Tour of the Gila and the 2007 National Cycling Championships women's road race championship, defeating former champions Kristin Armstrong and Amber Neben in a sprint to the finish. She also continued to swim for Whitman in the fall and graduated with a degree in economics from Whitman.
Abbott joined the HTC-Columbia Women's Team in 2008 and began to excel in European races, winning a mountain stage in the Giro della Toscana. The next year, she won stage 3 and the King of the Mountains jersey in the Giro Donne, finishing second overall. In 2010, Abbott joined the Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12 team and repeated her victories at the Tour of the Gila and the USA NAtional Championship Women's Road Race. She won two more stages and the overall championship at the Giro Donne, which was the only women's Grand Tour event held in 2010. That same month, she won one stage and the overall title at the Cascade Cycling Classic. She also won one stage and finished second in the Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin.