American mountain biker and Olympian Juli Furtado, AKA ‘The Queen’ is one of the pioneers of the early days of mountain biking.
Juli came to the sport from competitive skiing, where her career in the US National Ski Team concluded prematurely after several knee operations. She couldn’t ski, so she switched to mountain biking.
She raced numerous disciplines including cross country, where she won the inaugural World Championships, and downhill where she won the Downhill Word Championships. She also competed in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, placing 10th overall.
Her racing career came to an end when she was diagnosed with the auto-immune condition Lupus, which she had struggled with for some time. This wasn’t the end of her love of cycling, however.
She now works with Santa Cruz bicycles on their grass-roots sponsorship program, was instrumental in the creation of the first women’s specific mountain bike, the Santa Cruz Juliana, and now figureheads a full range of women’s specific bikes, Juliana Bicycles. And of course, she still rides.
