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Viola Brand
German artistic cyclist (born 1994) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Viola Brand (born 28 June 1994[1]) is a German cyclist specialising in artistic cycling. She has won national and European championships twice each, and the silver medal three times in the World Championships.
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Personal life
Brand was born in Backnang, Germany.[2][1] She tried to climb the training bike as early as 5 years old, then still failing to reach the pedals. Her elder brother did artistic cycling before her, and both he and Brand were coached by their mother.[3] She started training artistic cycling at 6 years old.[4][5][6]
Brand is studying clinical nutrition at Hohenheim University, Stuttgart.[7] As of February 2021[update], she is writing the thesis for her master's degree.[8]
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Professional career
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Brand's sports club is RSV Unterweissach (located in Weissach im Tal).[3][9] She joined the German national sports team at the age of 15,[5] and won the Junior European Championships in 2012.[9]
She set a world record at the European Junior Championships in 2011 in her age group,[10] and another world record at the regular European Championships in 2018.[11][12][13] Her best personal score was 194.71 points in German Masters 2019.[14]
Brand spent years perfecting her choreography and learning new stunts. It took her seven years of training to be able to do a handstand on the handlebar,[15] the stunt Brand is most proud of,[16] and in June 2019 she was able to perform a Maute jump for the first time, jumping from the saddle to the handlebars.[17]
Brand participated in a total of five World Championships, missing qualification in 2018[18] after a competition which German national coach Dieter Maute called "very hard".[19] Since each nation can only send two participants, Brand stated that "qualification is much harder than winning a medal at the World Championships".[18] Brand uses a special belt-driven bicycle,[16] and her motto, inscribed on the toothed belt, is "Du musst den Kampf mehr lieben als den Sieg" ("You have to love the fight more than the victory").[18][2]
Her last official competition was in Basel at the World Championships in December 2019, where she won a silver medal, making it her third Vice Championship.[1] In February 2020 she announced her retirement, although she continues to perform for exhibitions and to promote her sport.[20][1] Brand hopes to someday see artistic cycling become one of the Olympic sports.[6]
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Statistics
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Personal best
Her best results, according to data from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and German Cycling Federation (BDR):
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Other activities
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In 2017, Brand started an Instagram account after a friend suggested it, and by July 2018 had gathered over 100k followers.[4] As of February 2021[update], she has almost 400k followers.[8] Her channel piqued the interest of staff from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which Brand used to watch to improve her English skills, and in February 2020 she was a guest in the show.[61][62] In 2018, she participated in the talent show Das Supertalent but failed to reach the final.[7] In 2019, she toured with the show Feuerwerk der Turnkunst through 22 cities in Germany,[1] with her performance being lauded.[63][64]
After her February 2020 retirement from professional sports, Brand announced that she would like to focus on appearances in shows and her social media.[62] In early 2021, she signed a contract with the Golden State Warriors to perform during the halftime show, virtually at first due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic;[8] in early 2022 she performed live during several NBA halftime shows.[65] In July 2021, the Stuttgarter Zeitung reported on an underwater photography session featuring Brand with her bicycle.[66] In May 2022, she was featured in a video by Danny MacAskill.[67]
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References
External links
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