Cam Wood: World Cup runner-up on "next USA BMX star" label and being coached by idol Sam Willoughby
The 21-year-old Paris 2024 medal hopeful speaks exclusively to Olympics.com about his success during last year's World Cup season, being coached by his sporting idol, and what he does for fun away from the track.
Cycling BMX Racing
Bozeman, Montana in the United States sees significant snowfall for six months a year on average. Not exactly the ideal proving grounds for a BMX racer.
But 21-year-old Bozeman native Cameron Wood has overcome that – with a little help from moving to the warmer climes of Phoenix, Arizona – to become the USA's top male rider. And he has a real shot at making the podium next year at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Wood, who finished the 2022 UCI BMX Racing World Cup season second in the standings, is a talented rider who has already made his mark on the global BMX racing scene.
However, he is apprehensive when Olympics.com suggests in a recent interview that he is the next big U.S. star in the sport, following in the footsteps of the likes of Alise Willoughby on the women's side and the now-retired men's 2016 Olympic champion Connor Fields.
"I appreciate it, but at the same time I'm a little uncomfortable with it," Wood says. "In my eyes, I've always been the underdog. I'm a kid from Bozeman, Montana, performing on the world stage in a sport that's dominated by warm climates.
"I just kind of live in the moment and do the best I can at each event and while I appreciate those (labels), it's not really the way my mind works.
"(Fields) has been an inspiration, another guy I looked up to; obviously a very fast American, remarkable career. (But) I wouldn't really consider it a passing of the torch. I don't really wrap myself up into those things."
Cam Wood on learning to manage success and expectations
That "kid from Bozeman", who moved to Phoenix aged 16, is keen not to get ahead of himself, despite his groundbreaking results on the World Cup circuit.
"I'd say last year, honestly, I feel like I exceeded my expectations on the World Cup level, just because I hadn't had a whole lot of experience overseas," he says.
"I definitely went on a stretch that I wouldn't ever have believed in my wildest, results wise. What I was able to achieve was incredible at the end of last year."
But despite securing four World Cup podiums including a win in Colombia last season, Wood says he has taken a step back to reassess where he stands.
"The important thing that I've understood is I had some success early on in my pro career and I felt like I got too caught up in the outcome," Wood acknowledges candidly.
"I've been pretty good about bringing it back to, you know, the nuts and bolts of what was happening, and what made it good so that it can be sustainable. That's the goal, right?
"So it's just been a growing process as a pro really."
Cameron Wood (right) competing at the 2022 BMX Racing World Championships in Nantes, France.
Cameron Wood: USA BMXer on training with idol Sam Willoughby
Wood grew up wanting to be just like Australian rider Sam Willoughby, the London 2012 silver medallist. The American recalls wanting to copy his idol's style and looks.
"I'd watch him ride on the track and then I'd show up at the track and try and look like him and I'd wear the same stuff," he remembers. "He was definitely my biggest inspiration growing up."
So, when a friend made a somewhat fortuitous offer to the young Wood of the opportunity to spend a few days with Sam and his wife Alise, herself an Olympic silver medallist for Team USA, he needed no convincing.
"I was fortunate enough to meet him probably at the very tail-end of my amateur career and I started working with him full-time and did a lot of hands-on stuff with him in Chula Vista (in California)," Wood says.
"He saw the way that I kind of approached things in the way I train day-to-day. I think he understood that I was a pretty process-driven kid and pretty hungry and a hard worker."
Sam Willoughby – who also served as Alise's coach – then received a coaching offer from Australia's national federation AusCycling, which meant the end of Wood's time working with his BMX hero. But there's not a bad word to be had as far as Wood is concerned.
"He was, and still is, a huge role model in my life and has helped me tremendously get to the point where I am," Wood says. "Early on in my career for sure, having him and Alise around me was so big to learn from them.
"I learned so much and (the coaching split) was never something that I felt like it was the end of the world, just because I'd built such a good relationship with them and I had so much knowledge and grown so much from that relationship that I felt comfortable moving forward and obviously using everything I've learned and just kind of applying it to myself."
What is Cam Wood like away from the track?
Wood is known for being a hard, fierce racer on the BMX course, where the tiniest mistake could end with serious consequences.
However, he laughingly suggests that leaves observers with the wrong impression of him away from his bike.
"I'm a pretty chill dude, which comes as a surprise to a lot of people because I feel like a lot of people, when they see me in the work environment of racing… I can be misinterpreted, I think.
"I love to relax, have a good time, and rarely when I'm away from my bike will you not see me without a smile on my face. I spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, my family."
Wood also spends time on the golf course and out fishing, and is a mad sports fan – picking up a love of American stock car racing series NASCAR through friends as well as maintaining strong support for NFL team the San Francisco 49ers.
"There's more to life than just racing," he says matter-of-factly, an honest and perhaps refreshing take given the hours so many athletes dedicate to their craft. "There's kind of a fine line between involving it too much in your life and letting it become too big, (and keeping it separate)."
The unavoidable topic: Cameron Wood's Paris 2024 dream
This year's World Cup season serves as an Olympic qualifier for Paris 2024, with riders scoring ranking points towards qualification.
That's something Wood is all too aware of – even if he's trying to keep his childhood dreams in check, knowing that nothing is a done deal in sport. Indeed, Wood crashed out early in the first stop of the 2023 World Cup, forcing him to miss the second round in the same weekend.
"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't on my mind all the time," he says, before adding, laughing: "I think if someone says they're not thinking about it, they're lying.
"You know, watching the Olympics in 2008 when I was a young kid and I'm like, I wanna be on that screen one day.
"I just always bring it back to, there's a process to get there and a lot of people want the same thing.
"I've always believed in just taking things a race at a time and staying present, living in the moment and just making the most of each opportunity that I get. And I don't think anything's gonna change, really."
If he does earn enough points to qualify for the Paris 2024 Games, which will be held in the French cycling team's national training hub of St-Quentin-en-Yvelines, a regular World Cup stop around 25km west of the capital, Wood knows exactly what he wants to do.
"Once I qualify, I don't think I'm there for the t-shirts or stuff like that. I wanna win. That's kind of in my DNA and that's just the way I am.
"I'd be excited to experience it, but at the end of the day, I race to win regardless of where it is and what the spectacle is. So that's the ultimate goal."