Since Filomena discovered her passion for cycling at the age of three in April 2011, she has been constantly on the move on two (or sometimes one!) wheels. After some serious training, Filomena was then equipped with enough strength and stamina in February 2016 to ride her bike for the first time from her home in Koppl near Salzburg (712m) up the Gaisberg mountain (1288m). With a lot of motivation, she then competed in her first mtb race in June that same year in the U11 age bracket and came in second.

In the first year in the U13 bracket, things started for real. Filomena tried to compete in every race in the Austria’s Youngsters Cup. There were ups and downs, good and bad days. Some courses suited her very well, others not so much. To prepare in the best possible way for her second U13 year in 2019, she started competing in a Cross Country race in Vienna in mid-January. This was also the Austrian Championship competition, but only for the U17 age group. Despite the challenge of having to race against older riders Filomena ended up sixth out of ten participants. Well prepared, the Cross Country season started with a first place finish in Langenlois.