Rider type Time trialist Disciplines Road bicycle racing Weight 48 kg | Role Olympic athlete Name Mari Holden | |
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Full name Mari Kim Holden Paulsen Born March 30, 1971 (age 52)
Ventura, California, United States ( 1971-03-30 ) Olympic medals Cycling at the 2000 Summer Olympics - Women's Road Time Trial Profiles | ||
Mari Kim Holden Paulsen (born 30 March 1971 in Ventura, California ) is an American cycle racer. She won the world time trial championship in 2000 after winning a silver medal in the Olympic Games time trial in Sydney, Australia. She also won six U.S. championships, becoming the first American woman to win three consecutive U.S. time trial championships (1998–2000) and scoring a double by winning the U.S. time trial and road championships in 1999.
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Career
Holden was a two-time member of the U.S. junior world triathlon team, and was named junior triathlete of the year in 1991 by the Triathlon Federation USA. That year she finished seventh in the junior triathlon world championship.
She began cycling with a club in high school as part of a fitness program centered on triathlon, and did not make competitive cycling her focus until 1992 when she moved to Colorado Springs and began training with the U.S. cycling team to improve her triathlon. She also transferred to University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where she majored in philosophy.
After finishing sixth in the national time trial championship in 1993, Holden sat out much of 1994 with a compression fracture in her back. She came back the following two years, winning the time trial championship in 1995 and 1996.
The 1996 event was part of the trial to select members of the Olympic team. Selection was on overall performance in time trials and road races, and although Holden won both time trials, she did not fare so well in the road race and failed to qualify.
Holden raced in Europe. In 1999, she finished second in the Women's Challenge against an international field and in the top 10 in the Grande Boucle.
The following year, she won a silver medal at the Olympics, followed by a victory two weeks later in the world time trial championship in Plouay, France.
That year (2000), Holden was elected to the board of directors of USA Cycling and re-elected in 2004. She formerly served on the athletic advisory committee to the U.S. Olympic Committee and was athlete ambassador to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Holden coaches and holds cycling clinics and cycling camps as well as serves as a consultant on women's cycling issues and products. She was called one of the "greatest ambassadors in the sport of cycling" by Ride Magazine (March, 2008).