Julien Arnaud Absalon (born 16 August 1980) is a French former cross-country mountain biker, who competed as a professional from 2001 to 2018. He is considered to be one of the most successful cross-country cyclists of all time. Throughout his career, Absalon gold medals at the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics, five World Championships (2004–2007, 2014), seven UCI World Cup overall titles (2003, 2006–2009, 2014, 2016) and 33 World Cup rounds, which was an all-time record before being broken by Nino Schurter in 2023. He also won all fourteen French cross-country championships between 2003 and 2016, and five European Championships (2006, 2013–2016).

Career highlights

Source: 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.

Major results