| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Mara Katherine Abbott | ||
| Born | November 14, 1985 Boulder, Colorado, United States |
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| Height | 5'5" (1.52 m) | ||
| Weight | 115 lb (52 kg) | ||
| Team information | |||
| Current team | Diadora-Pasta Zara-Manhattan | ||
| Discipline | Road | ||
| Role | Rider | ||
| Professional team(s) | |||
| 2007 2008-2009 2010 2011 |
Webcor Builders HTC-Highroad Women Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12 Diadora-Pasta Zara-Manhattan |
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| Major wins | |||
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| Infobox last updated on May 18, 2011 |
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Mara Abbott (born November 14, 1985) is an American professional women's bicycle racer who currently rides for the Diadora-Pasta Zara-Manhattan team. In 2010, Abbott became the first American ever to win the Giro Donne, one of the Grand Tours of women's bicycle racing.
Abbott was born and still lives in Boulder, Colorado.[1] 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 springtme activity.[2] 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.
She turned professional in 2007 and joined the Webcor Builders team.[3] 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.[4] She also continued to swim for Whitman in the fall and graduated with a degree in economics from Whitman.[1][5]
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.[6] The next year, she won stage 3 and the King of the Mountains jersey in the Giro Donne, finishing second overall.[1] 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.[1] 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.[7][8] That same month, she won one stage and the overall title at the Cascade Cycling Classic.[9] She also won one stage and finished second in the Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin.[10][11]
For 2011, Abbott moved to the Diadora-Pasta Zara-Manhattan team.[12] She won one stage and finished second overall in the Tour of the Gila, behind 1996 Canadian Olympic medalist Clara Hughes.[13][14]
In addition to cycling, Abbott is a certified yoga instructor and enthusiast who spends at least an hour a day at yoga, even during race days.[15]
2011: Diadora-Pasta Zara-Manhattan
2010: Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12
2009: HTC-Columbia Women's Team
2008: HTC-Columbia Women's Team
2007: Webcor Builders