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.
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]
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 [
de] 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]
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 showDas 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]
^
abBrand, Viola (31 July 2018).
"Meeting Viola Brand". We love cycling (Interview).
Škoda Auto.
Archived from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
^
abSchwarz, Wilfried (4 June 2018).
"EM-Gold mit neuem Weltrekord geholt". Backnanger Kreiszeitung (in German).
Archived from the original on 22 February 2021. Retrieved 15 February 2021.
^Kowalewski, Martin (30 December 2019).
"Kraftvoll und schön". Kreiszeitung (in German).
Archived from the original on 31 December 2019. Retrieved 22 February 2021.