The talented 18-year-old from Norway raced her fist UCI Mountain Bike World Championships last week, and signed off with a medal on her first attempt.
“I feel like I raced well. My strategy was to hold back a little at the start while but still maneuver my way to the front of the field. This worked pretty well, and I’m really happy to be third at the end,” Helene Marie Fossesholm said after the race.
The 2019 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships took place in Mont-Sainte-Anne in Quebec, Canada, from August 28 to September 1. The ambitious athlete is on the Norwegian National team in both mountain biking and cross-country skiing, and currently she puts equal effort into both sports.
“I really love cross-country skiing, and I really love cycling, and I am just as serious about both of them. So far, I have been able to combine the two, and I feel like they compliment each other nicely. The training I do for cycling transfers well to skiing, and vice versa,” Fossesholm says.
Less than a month ago, Fossesholm skied the infamous uphill roller ski race Lysebotn Opp at the Blink Summer Ski Festival in Sandnes, Norway, where she was eighth overall in a competitive field worthy of a FIS World Cup cross-country race. She also won the 10-kilometer skate roller ski race at the same event.
Her first season at the junior level, Fossesholm won nearly everything in her age category, including This year she took home two individual silver medals and a gold medal from the relay at the 2019 FIS Nordic Junior World Championships. Matched with World Cup level skiers, Fossesholm routinely places among the top 10, and the Fossesholm is considered one of the biggest talents in women’s skiing.
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