Jaqueline Mourão

Jaqueline Mourão
Personal information
Born December 27, 1975
Minas Gerais, Brazil
Height 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Weight 119 lb (54 kg)
Spouse(s) Guido Visser
Sport
Country  Brazil
Sport Biathlon, Cross-country skiing, Cycling

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.

Jaqueline Mourão is a Brazilian cross country skier who has competed in two Winter Olympics at Turin and Vancouver, as well as in two Summer Olympics in Country Bike (Athens and Beijing), she earned her best finish of 67th twice, both in the 10 km events at 2006 and 2010.

Mourão's best finish at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships was 55th in the 30 km event at Liberec in 2009.

Her best World Cup finish was 80th in a 10 km event at Switzerland in 2009.

For her 5th Olympic Games, she has competed at the 2014 Sochi Olympics in both Country Ski and biathlon, and carried the Brazilian flag during the Opening Ceremony.

References