Julien Absalon

Julien Absalon
	at the European Championships in Bern 2013
To person
Date of birth	16th August 1980 (age 40)
nation	France
discipline	Mountain bike
End of career	2018
Team (s)
Until 2017 ; 2018	BMC Racing Team ; Absolutely Absalon
Most important successes
	Olympic games Olympic champion in mountain bike 2004 Olympic champion in mountain bike 2008 World championships World Champion Cross Country 2004 , 2005 , 2006 , 2007 , 2014 European championships Junior European Champion Cross Country 1998 U23 European Cross Country Champion 2001, 2002 European Cross Country Champion 2006, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
	Last updated: September 7, 2019

Julien Absalon (born August 16, 1980 in Remiremont ) is a former French mountain biker and five-time world champion (2004–2007, 2014) and two-time Olympic champion (2004 and 2008).

Athletic career

Julien Absalon has won numerous titles as a cross-country mountain biker . So he became multiple French champion, European champion and world champion in the various age groups . He won four world championship titles in a row with the elite drivers. His greatest successes are victories at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and 2008 in Beijing.

This makes him the first mountain biker to successfully defend his Olympic victory. Julien Absalon, together with his compatriot Miguel Martinez and the Swiss Nino Schurter, was the only mountain biker to become Olympic champion, world champion and overall world cup winner. Due to his dominance, Julien Absalon is often compared to Lance Armstrong in the mountain bike scene and in his home country France , from which he distances himself.

In 2009 he won the World Cup in Offenburg-Rammersweier. This was his 18th World Cup victory, replacing the previous record holder Thomas Frischknecht .

In September 2014 he won his fifth world title in cross-country mountain biking in Norway. In 2016 he won the last three of his 33 World Cup victories, which was a record. He was the first mountain biker to win the overall World Cup seven times, which was not evened out by the Swiss Nino Schurter until 2019.

At the Roc d'Azur cycling race on the Côte d'Azur in October 2017, he announced that he would be part of his own team “Absolut Absalon” until 2019 and that he would leave the BMC Racing Team .

In May 2018, Absalon announced his immediate retirement from cross-country. He has been suffering from a pollen allergy for three years , which has recently got worse. Since then Absalon has only competed in e-bike races.

Julien Absalon is in a relationship with the multiple cycling world champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (* 1992).