Great British Freestyle BMX Olympic team
So the word on the web is that freestyle BMX will be the Olympics. And not just Vert. Apparently, unbeknown to anyone until now, Street, ahem, Park will now be included in the 2012 Olympics in London.
Kye Forte, Harry Main, Dan Lacey and Ben Hennon mocked up in Olympic attire…
Firstly, who will be riding? BMX isn’t even organized enough to have a World Champion. Kye Forte can legitimately put on his CV that he’s an undisputed 4 year World Champion of Dirt. This is because the last Worlds was run in 2005.
The iBMXFF or International BMX Freestyle Federation are so organised that their website is currently flagged by Google as one that maliciously downloads virus’ and who’s latest update is the World’s results from 2005. Check that here if you dare. They are a partner of the UCI and could possibly be running things. The UCI is probably an alien name to anyone who’s not into BMX Racing. But the UCI stands for the Union Cycliste Internationale, for specifics on what they do try Wiki here.
In a nutshell, the UCI are the people who give riders licenses to compete, they arrange dope testing (which with a rough estimation, 60% of riders would fail) and in event’s where a country competes instead of an individual (like the Olympics) they watch over a points ranking system. BMX Fresstyle doesn’t have one of these yet. So in order to qualify for the Olympics, a ranking system is going to have to be instated worldwide.
The Olympics is usually a fastest, highest, furthest competition. In the events in which a freestyle element is key such as Gymnastics, the criteria for judging is very strict and quite simple. The manoeuvrings are subject to one variable, the human body, and the platform is a flat piece of ground. BMX street would be set on a street course with rails, ramps, jumps, etc and so would be much more complicated.
What are the benefits of BMX street being in the Olympics? Snowboarding as we now know it is a hugely mainstream sport, widely accepted worldwide but only a few short years ago was underground and seen as a pest by the skiing comunity. The Olympics is no doubt a huge catalyst for the acceptance of this. What does that mean for BMX? Would BMX becoming that mainstream be a good thing?
There’s a whole new world that BMX is about to go into and it could divide alot of people. Do we love our little world of bike riding and want to keep it to ourselves? Or do we want it to go mainstream, get more skateparks, grow brands and get riders paid properly? Wouldn’t it be nice for a pro rider to actually make some money? Look at Shawn White for proof of what’s possible…
The future is uncertain but it’s new territroy. Let’s just hope the performance director wises up a little bit. British Cycling’s performance director David Brailsford told MP’s and Peers at a recent Westminster conference that, “The information I’m getting is I’ll be performance director of street BMX so I will have to go and get my hoodie and baggie shorts.”
Nearly as good as this joke…
Check out Bike Biz for the full article and the latest info on the Olympic progress…
February 11th, 2009 at 11:58
How can you judge someone on a street course, with so much individual thought and creativity put in to a run? i think it would almost make a mockery of our sport because the people running it don’t know what’s what, and the people who do know what’s what (spectators and competetors alike) would just get pissed off with all the beurocracy.
If David Brailsford knew anything about BMX he would at least have said “The information I’m getting is I’ll be performance director of street BMX so I will have to go and get my skinny jeans on and a generic, mediocre collection of tattoos.â€
Clown.
February 11th, 2009 at 14:02
Backflips and frontflips and triple tailwhips.. will be the party tricks.
February 11th, 2009 at 14:28
I’ll win obviously!
February 11th, 2009 at 15:24
harry main cant even get in a simple session finals…..hennon will not pass the drug test….united wont send kye coz they have no money…lacey well he is out side the stadium trying to 360 the stairs…
February 11th, 2009 at 17:07
people could milk the expenses and claim the free travel,then withdraw at the last minute (not always the safest way eh),then head off into the city to ride real street,or ride rom
February 11th, 2009 at 17:48
every time harry main does a flair gordan brown slips him a tenner.
February 11th, 2009 at 20:53
ill do an x factor over the whole stadium! ill win the frickin gold!
February 11th, 2009 at 21:15
Dan lacey will use the olympic torch to light his spliff , harry main is such a twat he cut me up on purpose at rampworx other week no respect for him whatsoever
February 12th, 2009 at 15:06
Ha could be a laugh seeing some one like Lacey lined up next to a trained Austrian guy with shaven legs and all in lycra
February 12th, 2009 at 19:25
kye 40,s an obvious choise for the uk olympic bmx team that geezers got a bloody good attitude towards bmx.the sport needs more pro,s like kye imagine how good ur local scene would be if you had a kye 40 bustin nuts for it. sorry to sound like the biggest brown nose ever but its just true. pull ur fingers out!!!!
February 12th, 2009 at 19:43
This is will be an epic fail, it will provide a rad as fuck party though, hopefully screech spinner and his massive gums will show up so we can batter fuck into him. ill see you all in 2012…
February 12th, 2009 at 20:01
hes pro your not you should get out the fuckin way pal! hahahahaha
February 12th, 2009 at 20:31
The should put vert in. Not street
February 12th, 2009 at 23:44
the only thing i like about the idea is it may encourage councils to build better designed skateparks using better materials instead of “Rhino Ramps”. Apart from that i hate the thought of this happening
February 13th, 2009 at 09:41
This will just be shite, we wont get a british team, theyll all fail the drug tests lol not only that it will make the sport too comercialised. Gordan brown can shuv it up his arse.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:31
I’m pretty sure they will get the people who judge the x-games to judge this.
Also. ditch forte and lacey no disrespect to those guys, but we are going for gold.
Mark Webb- you want someone who can go big… and nail almost any trick known to be impossible.
Henon – pure all out.
niki croft? style and big tricks
Bestwick – he can shred anything.
February 13th, 2009 at 20:45
WHAT THE FUCK BRUV !
February 13th, 2009 at 22:33
ill win the frickin gold for the USA!!!! ill frickin pick up all the british team and backflip x factor the whole stadium with them on my frickin back
February 14th, 2009 at 19:16
Niki croft style , have you seen his brighton aint ready section ruff as council houses
February 15th, 2009 at 19:17
Dhers will win, the non competitive side of bmx riders wont give a monkeys shit, nuff said!
February 15th, 2009 at 21:48
that shit is too fuckin funny……
February 18th, 2009 at 15:22
[...] the press conference came and went with little to no attention in the cycling community, ride UK bmx, and espn mentioned it on there website’s but I haven’t seen it on any other cycling [...]
February 18th, 2009 at 15:42
First of all: “BMX” means Bicycle Motocross – it means this is racing sport, becouse MotoCROSS(MX) is a racing sport and BMX is just an imitation.. thats why this name and acronyme. BMX doesent have any disciplines just like speed skating. Freestyle BMX, like figure skating is totaly other sport… just bicycles and skates are used. Just becouse You mentioned that Freestyle comunity has not any proper regulations, organisations..sprot should be renamed long ago to not discriminate and separate freestylers on bicycles of other type or wheelsize. for example: Bicycle Freestyle. In other hand… real BMX doesnt restrict wheelsize. There are clases for different wheelsized bicycles… For any Freestyle discipline there also could be “classic”, “cruiser” and “MTB” clases.
February 24th, 2009 at 17:34
Johan, go take your face for a shit
February 27th, 2009 at 19:00
I agree with akmed
March 4th, 2009 at 22:07
I knew as soon as i looked through at this.. there would be Nobhead comments by Gobshites ( go follow football kids! )
Firstly, yes, it wil be hard to judge… so bring in bmx judges.. Hoffman has a company to sanction and help run contest of all magnatudes!! H.S.A.
Secondly, would it be that hard to run the worlds again up till 2012???
Thirdly, If most riders fail drug testing… fuck em, they dont ride! Simple!!
Its about time this sport is recognised as an olympic level sport!! Of course, all the little trendy ‘hate the corps’ riders ( who only ride because they think its fashionable to ) will probably object to it… but fuck them too, this sport was around long before them… it’ll be around long after they quit!
Bmx deserves to be fully recognised and accepted for what it is, and it will be a huge Boost for the sport.. dont forget how many rider owned companies will benefit from this boost and you can guarentee more skateparks will be built… tell me which part of this a bad thing??
You can talk shit about it all ya want.. you’ll all be fuckin sat there watching it!!
Ya can go an leave ya Nobhead replies now…
April 16th, 2009 at 17:15
We’d sponsor the team… just to see the video afterwoods… you know it would be wild…..
April 18th, 2009 at 19:22
Oh god here we go…career bmx kids. The people who will get all the coverage in BMX will be the bmx equivalents of Tim Henman, Andy Murray and Greg Rudeski.
April 18th, 2009 at 19:29
“Next up is Flint Brat from Colorado. he was conceived on a halfpipe and got his first BMX six months before that. “
August 24th, 2009 at 05:46
…and the budget for BMX Freestyle will be pouring!!!
More Woodward style ride training park will emerge worldwide!
…and IRAQ first International BMX Freestyle rider will be train to pull Backflip to Frontflip till he land; or else he will face bomb blown in da mouth!!!
September 29th, 2009 at 20:39
If we don’t raise the profile of these sports how are current facilities gonna keep going? Everyone wants better facilities but local councils haven’t got the money to invest in european/world class standard parks in the UK. Participation maybe growing but its not enough to pay rent/rates/improvements etc…. in the majority of parks. How long can they go on for without investment?
January 16th, 2010 at 21:34
if this happens there will be loads of parks like woodward and no proper street parks, all riding style will go to shite and everyone will be riding like ryan nyquist, without style or street the sport has gone to shit