Introduction
Julien Absalon (born 16 August 1980) is a French cross-country mountain biker, widely regarded as the greatest of all time in this discipline.
Career
2003: Absalon won his first UCI Mountain Bike World Cup.
2004: Gold at World Champions and the Athens Olympic Games.
2005 Absalon again won the World Championships.
2006: Winner at the World Championships, European Championships, French Championships and the overall World Cup.
2007: World Champion and World Cup Champion
2008: Won 2nd Gold Medal at the Beijing Olympic Games, World Cup Champion
2009: Number 1 World Ranking for all but 5 days of the year. Winner of UCI MTB World Cup for the 5th time, silver at the World Championships
2010: 2nd Overall at World Championships
2011: 3rd at the World Championships and World Cup
2012: At the 2012 Summer Olympics cross-country race, he suffered a tyre puncture in the opening lap. After changing tyre and noticing that he was trailing the leader by 55 seconds, he decided to abandon the race, seeing that his chances of winning a medal had disappeared.
2013: Won European Championships
2014: Wins 5th World Championship title, French and European Championships. His season was cut short when, that November, he suffered a broken collarbone during a cyclocross race.
2015: Absalon wins the European Championships, French Championships, and finished second overall in the World Championships. Completed the season ranked world number 1.
2016: Finishes the Rio Olympic Games in 8th place.
He has been overall winner of the World Cup mountain bike cross-country series seven times (2003, 2006–2009, 2014, 2016) and has won a record 33 World Cup cross-country races as of September 4, 2016. He won five cross-country Mountain Bike World Championships (2004–2007, 2014). He has also won all fourteen French cross-country championships between 2003 and 2016, and five European Championships (2006, 2013–2016). He currently rides for the BMC Racing Team. He previously rode for Bianchi (2001–2006) and Orbea (2007–2012).