Clean Sport

BMX Freestyle

#TrainingWheelsToTokyo – From Local Skateparks to the Olympics

23 Jul 2021 | 02:21 PMBy: Xavier Cordier

On July 31, BMX Freestyle (BMX FS) will see itself making its Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games.

The discipline, although young, emerged from the streets of America during the 1980s and involved participants performing tricks with their bikes in local competitions.

American Bob Haro is acknowledged as the godfather of BMX FS and played a pivotal role in promoting the profile of the sport in the US and worldwide.

BMX FS started to catch on in BMX circles when riders started flocking to skateparks as their primary venue to invent tricks that soon attracted local and global attention.

Eventually, BMX FS’ rapidly growing popularity led to the development of a new subculture widely accepted amongst the greater BMX community, with more products created specifically for the discipline.

The all-action, adrenaline-fueled sport was then swiftly picked up and included in the X-Games, Dew Tour and Gravity Games, commercialising the sport on an international stage.

In 2015, BMX FS was recognized by Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), with the first UCI BMX Freestyle World Cup taking place the following year.

In 2017, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially added the event into the Olympic program. After continuous success, BMX FS now finds itself at the pinnacle of the sporting world - the Olympics.

Tokyo 2020 will play host to the park discipline of the sport, wherein competitors will execute tricks on obstacles such as walls, box jumps, and spines.

BMX FS Down Under

BMX FS’ culture in Australia is unique in the way it is operated and structured. The discipline has grown to be highly functioning through the support of a tight knit community that lives and breathes BMX FS.

BMX FS’ continued growth is widely driven by passionate members of the freestyle community, who cater to riders through a range of private and public BMX oriented ventures hand built by them.

RampFest in Melbourne was the first of many BMX FS businesses in Australia to create a purpose-built venue in 2008.

Chris Bierton has been one of the members to play a pivotal role in developing the sport through RampFest, with RampFest being home to a range of rider levels, including juniors entering the sport, all the way up to elite athletes training for national and international events.

With a unique non-club-based system, Bierton and many other entrepreneurs around the nation are the strongest stakeholders of the discipline and will continue to play a pivotal role in driving the sport's demand for generations to come.

"Logan (Martin), Brandon (Loupos) and Natalya (Diehm) didn’t come through any pathway or club development system,” Bierton said.

“They came through a community sport that was just fun, and in the absence of clubs, businesses like RampFest have come up and done exactly what a club would do or probably do it better, as we do it commercially and have to get people to part with their dollars.

“Over the years, BMX FS has become quite entrepreneurial in its spirit and culture with past riders starting small businesses and wanting to do something better for the sport.

“They have truly been the ones driving the scene.”

Under the banner of Cycling Australia, BMX FS started to get its recognition via an inaugural National Championship conducted in 2018 in Melbourne, which saw Loupos clinch the title alongside a roaring number of entries and spectators.

This first National Championship event was the catalyst for the sport to be embraced nationally, with numbers now growing with each passing year. There has been three further National Championships since 2018, with the 2020 and the 2021 Nationals Championships falling under the AusCycling banner.

Kipp Kauffman, AusCycling's General Manager for Events and Racing says the growth of BMX FS events has been incredible since the inaugural National Championships in Melbourne in 2018.

“Since that time, we’ve seen the addition of Oceania Championships and numerous other UCI classified events,” he said.

With an Olympic debut scheduled in a weeks’ time, AusCycling's commitment, support, and advocacy for the discipline over the past several years has been unwavering.

Under AusCycling, BMX FS has been able to hold more domestic and UCI sanctioned events, while also providing membership models with benefits deemed attractive for riders in the streets, on dirt jumps, in halfpipe and on constructed ramps.

Freestyle riders are now also established members of the Australian Cycling Team and have had access to state-of-the-art facilities for their preparations to Tokyo 2020.

Diehm will be Australia’s first female rider representing BMX FS at the Olympics.

“I'm excited. Speechless, honestly,” she said

“We (my family and I) are all so excited. We have sacrificed so much as a family just to get where I am today. And I guess I couldn't be more proud and you know, we're sharing our excitement together.

“I am just hoping to do my best and I expect it's going to be an amazing contest. I will not have experienced anything like it before. So, I'm just hoping to do my best.”

Diehm’s entrance into the competitive structure of BMX FS began as an 11-year-old in Central Queensland after receiving her first bike as a Christmas gift.

“Coming from a small town like Gladstone, I didn’t know much about BMX FS, but I got in touch with the right people like Wade Bootes through another person who mentioned that I was someone to really watch out for,” Diehm said.

“There were other women I had no idea about and who I got to know only when I started competing, as I was so out of the circle due to only doing it as a hobby for fun.

“But I didn’t know anything about UCI or contests, and it has been pretty hard to adjust to while feeling the pressure of a lot of things, but I am still having fun, so that is the main part.”

For Diehm, dual Olympian Caroline Buchanan has played a key role in getting her into the competitive sphere of the discipline and credits her for it largely.

“I had actually never met her or spoken to her, but I got a FaceTime, and I was like woah! If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have done it, but with her being so inspirational and all the achievements she has had and knowing she believes in me reinforces the fact that I need to believe in myself.”

With the men’s, newly crowned BMX FS World Champion Logan Martin enters Tokyo 2020 as the hot favorite for gold.

“I’m extremely stoked to not only be selected on the Australian team for the Tokyo Olympic Games, but also to be the first Australian ever to be going to the Olympics for BMX FS - that’s massive!” he said.

For Logan, his entry into the discipline as a young teenager was highly self-driven and self-motivated.

In the absence of a formal club set up, he took it up on himself to work on his skills and tricks around local skate parks while learning off his mates and other riders. From thereon, it was everyday visits to skate parks until he was good enough to compete overseas in international events.

“My goal is to always do my best. I know my best will be a big contender for a gold medal so I always try to focus on that leading into events and it will be the same heading into Tokyo,” Martin said.

“I will prepare as best I can and go into the event knowing I’ve put in the work and let the rest play out the way it’s meant to.”

You can catch all the BMX Freestyle action in the Olympics on Seven and 7plus: Live, free, and streaming in HD at the 7plus Olympic Hub at the below times.

Sat July 31 2021, 11:10 – 13:20 AESTSat 31 July 2021, 11:10 – 13:20 AEST