Despite a glittering career, a surprising omission from Mara Abbott’s palmares is a start at the Olympic Games. She missed out on a spot in 2008 and was on a year-long break from the sport in 2012, meaning that the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 could be her first tilt at the quadrennial event.
As a climber, Abbott is well suited to the lumpy course that heads along the Rio coastline, and could be a contender for a medal, but she refuses to put any pressure on herself when it comes to getting a spot on the US team. While many are already building their season around this one major target, Abbott sees a ride at the Olympics as an added bonus to what she’s already setting out to do in 2016.
“I’ll be the best bike racer I can be and everyone else will, and then [USA Cycling] will have to make the decision,” Abbott told Cyclingnews from her home in Colorado. “If you go out and race your best across the board, then that is going to give you the best chance of being selected for the Olympic team. You would hope that if you are dedicating yourself to being a bike racer then you’ll want to be doing your best all the time anyway. So it’s a little bit of an incentive but it’s an incentive to do what you’re already going to do anyway.”
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You get the sense that she really does mean what she says, and it isn’t just an attempt to deflect the pressure, but the thought of what she faces should she be selected is a tantalising prospect. “I’m excited,” she said of the Rio course, which features two climbs including the 8.9km ascent of Vista Chinesa.
“It’s always difficult to tell what the course is really like, especially from other people’s interpretations. Someone will tell you ‘it’s a hill’ and then you go and look at it and think ‘that’s not a hill’ but it really seems like the signs are lining up and we keep hearing about how good and hilly a course it is. I haven’t seen it personally, so I’ll withhold my judgement until I’ve actually seen it, but it is an exciting prospect from the rumours that I’ve been hearing.”
Away from the Olympics, Abbott will ride a very similar programme to that of 2015, although the details have not been finalised. She is likely to split her time between the US and Europe, with the Tour of the Gila and Redlands in the States sandwiched between the Classics and the Giro Donne, where she is targeting her third overall victory. For the first time since 2009, she will be riding for the same team for the second year running after she extended her contract with Wiggle-Honda. While the team are based in Europe and registered in Belgium, team manager Rochelle Gilmore has allowed Abbott to compete outside their standard racing programme – as Gilmore has with other riders such as Jolien D’hoore and Peta Mullens.
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