Saya Sakakibara’s long way back from head traumas: 'Now I’m putting health first'

BMX racer Saya Sakakibara has spent a lot of time off the bike recovering over the last 12 months.

The 22-year-old Australian suffered a string of bad concussions that started after her crash in the semi-final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in July. She gained a mild head trauma in Florida early this year and had a more recent injury at the World Cup event in Papendal, Netherlands.

Each time Sakakibara managed to pick herself up, winning the Australian nationals in January and stepping on the World Cup podium in Glasgow in May. But this time the daughter of a Japanese mother and British father decided to extend her time off until she feels fully healed.

Hence the decision to skip the upcoming 2022 UCI BMX racing World Championships in Nantes, France, from 26 to 31 July.

“I feel like this time around I'm doing things properly and I'm putting health first, recovering from my brain injury first, then getting back into training. And it's really, really important that that happens in that order,” she said in a recent interview.

The Australian spent the last few weeks in Austria and Switzerland doing rehab and getting the best support from the the state-of-art facilities of the Red Bull Athlete Performance Centre in Salzburg. There she underwent daily physio sessions and brain stimulation activities to improve her eye-body coordination.

“I feel like I am recovering well. I'm really diligent with not doing too much and doing things that are good for my brain rather than trying to rush back into training or anything like that.”

Sakakibara admits that the main challenge since crashing in Tokyo was the mental recovery: “The last few months have just been just the whole process of getting my confidence back. While that took a long time for me to physically recover, mentally recovering from that crash was also another component that I didn't really think about. And, you know, getting back into the racing scene was another whole process in itself.”

Learning from Kai

Saya takes inspiration in her recovery from her brother Kai, who has made huge progress since a horrific race accident in February 2020 left him in a coma for six weeks. “I think he's just as an inspiration to me as to everyone else,” she said.

“I guess I am one of the very few people who saw him at his very lowest when he was in hospital, where he'd lost all his muscle and couldn't talk, couldn't move... To see him going from that to where he is now, where he's posting videos, he's squatting 100 kilos, he's moving his body, he's doing speeches at schools and things like that. It's just incredible to see how far he has come.”

She added: “I think it is very rare to see someone go from that to where he is now and it's just in his nature just to keep going and keep working at it. And that's what he was like while he was racing.

“It's just absolutely amazing how he was able to take his life that he had as a professional athlete to now recovering from a brain injury. And his life looks totally different now. And how he's handled all that is just something that I don't know how I would have done. You know, it's just amazing to see and kind of makes me think about what I can or how I can approach the challenges that I'm facing in my career too”

The two siblings have always been very close and despite living in two different continents, they face time once or twice a week.

She reveals how their relationship hasn’t really changed since his accident: “We’re just supporting each other by just being normal, I guess. And that was what it was like when we were racing as well, like travelling the circuit. We always have the same amount of respect for each other and same amount of love for each other.”

'Life is great in Southern France'

Since December Sakakibara is based near Avignon, South of France, sharing her life with boyfriend – and fellow BMW racer – Romain Mahieu.

“He’s really awesome, I can’t fault him in any way,” she said.

“When we do train, we're trying to get the best out of each other and we support each other the best we can. But then, you know, away from training, away from races, we just completely switch off and we can just enjoy each other's company or go somewhere different.”

In the Provence region the Australian can enjoy a favourable climate and good training facilities, like the BMX track in Sarrians, featuring an eight-metre Supercross Olympic standard start hill.

She’s also learning French and enjoying local delicacies like bread, pain au chocolat and fresh croissants.

“When we both do such a stressful profession, it's really, really important that the home environment is nice and relaxed and there is no stress and there is no conflict. Basically the goal of this year was to race as much as I can, spend time with him, you know, travel to the races together and train together and things like that. And yeah, life is really great!”

Looking at the positives

Sakakibara is now focussed on completing her recovery journey by taking things step by step.

_“_Just the training and things that you do on day to day also help build up that confidence. And then on race day you just be like, ‘Yep, I've done all those things and yes, I can trust and just let the race happen’.

“I think it’s just the whole process that I feel like everyone goes through at some point, but it's just a learning experience. You just learn every time and as long as you don't get too overwhelmed with where you are and compared to where you were or where you want to be, I think it's a healthy process.”

Before crashing in Papendal, the 22-year-old had an encouraging start to the World season with a third and fifth place in two consecutive rounds at the opening event in Glasgow.

“I've crashed multiple times in the past I guess 12 months but there has been a lot of positives and I've been able to come back from them physically and still be really competitive against the best in the world.

“So I think those are the positives that I'll be taking away and knowing that I just need to make a few tweaks and work on my mental side it just makes me excited to see just how far I can go when I'm actually doing pretty good where I'm at now.”