Rebecca Rusch
Nicknamed the “Queen of Pain” for her superhuman endurance, Rebecca Rusch is one of the most decorated athletes in the history of adventure racing — if not in history. She’s a seven-time world champion across multiple sports, from 24-hour solo mountain biking to masters cross-country skiing. She holds the course record on the Moab-to-Fruita Kokopelli Trail and has won the Leadville 100 mountain bike race four times. She founded the SRAM Gold Rusch Tour in 2014, which travels to North American races and events to host skills clinics and group rides for women. She is the author of an autobiography, Rusch to Glory, and a firefighter and EMT in her hometown of Ketchum, Idaho. As a Red Bull Endurance Athlete, Rusch embarked on a 1,200-mile ride of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 2015 in search of the site where her father’s plane was shot down during the Vietnam War. The trip is chronicled in the documentary Blood Road (Mountainfilm 2017).