Godmother of British BMX racing makes comeback after 36 years

When Sarah-Jane Nichols saw British cycling supremo Chris Hoy outside Buckingham Palace at Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Pageant in June 2022 in which they were both set to take part, she said hello, before quickly rummaging in her bag for her phone to ask for a selfie.

"But before I even had a chance to hand it to my friend, (Chris) got his phone out and gave it to one of the other chaps and said, 'Can you get a photo of us, please?" Nichols told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview in October.

Describing the moment as "gobsmacking", the 53-year-old was blown away that one of Britain's most successful ever athletes – a six-time Olympic champion and 11-time world gold medallist in track cycling – was asking to have a photo taken with her.

But there's a reason those in the cycling community know of the BMX racing Brit. Nichols' story is quite something.

BMX craze hits the UK

In 1987, Nichols became girls' world champion in BMX racing. The final was a frantic pedal to the finish for the 17-year-old, who found herself in last place during the first stage. Riders had to stay in their lanes for the first 15 metres in those days, and with lanes picked out of a hat, Nichols found herself in the worst spot, lane eight – and had it all to do.

Pedalling furiously, the teenager made her way from last to first to claim top spot. She then promptly retired from the sport.

The popularity of BMX was beginning to wane after an initial explosion in the early 80s helped in part by the scenes in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie, ET, in which – spoiler alert (come on, you must have seen it!) schoolboy Elliott escapes the baddies with the alien in his BMX basket.

"Suddenly, these bikes started turning up," said Nichols, who was competing in the schoolboy motocross series with her brother at the time. "The kids would ride around bits of the track or on the side in the car park doing wheelies and building little jumps."

Nichols head was turned and like many kids at the time, received a BMX bike for Christmas. She was soon away, winning the first race she entered at a competition near her home in a Hampshire village.

But nine years later, after winning seven British titles, becoming a four-time European champion, and one-time world's best, she was done.

Teenage retirement

"The sport had started slowing down," says Nichols of her decision to step away so young. "From '84, '85, '86, it was huge, it was massive. It was on the TV. But come 1987, I left school. I wanted to work, to earn some money and then come 17, of course it gets harder, doesn't it?

"Friends at work were like, oh, we're going to party, and I was like, oh, I can't, I've got to go racing tomorrow. There was a whole series of things that led to it."

After announcing that 1987 would be her last year in the sport, she saw the season out, with her last race, the British championships at Derby Greyhound Stadium. Finishing on a high, a lap of honour was awarded to her such was her standing in the sport.

Nichols turned to ice hockey for the next 35 years.

Lockdown low

After playing for England Ladies and Great Britain, Nichols headed into a recreational league.

Initially fun, the low standing of the sport at Britain's ice rinks meant a lot of late nights for the now-working woman.

"I remember playing a game with midnight face-off away in Romford (Essex, more than 100km from where she lived) and getting home at five o'clock in the morning," says Nichols, who also cites the increasing degradation of the rinks as another factor for her decision to stop the sport.

Yet it was two additional aspects – one expected, and one really not – that finally curtailed the hockey playing: the menopause and COVID.

"It all just hit me like a steam train if I'm honest," says Nichols now.

"I tried going training and I was having sweats on the ice and coming over all dizzy and I didn't know what was happening to me," says Nichols of the peri-menopause that started when she was around 48.

"I had every symptom under the blooming sun. I had flushes, palpitations, the lack of motivation. I mean, brain fog, I still get a lot.

"I mean, it was really the menopause that stopped the ice hockey when I look back now because I was just struggling so much. I did love playing, I loved the team, you know, the banter. We used to have a lot of fun," says Nichols of the mixed team in which she played, mostly the only woman.

But then COVID hit, proving the final nail in the ice hockey-playing coffin.

During various lockdown periods in the UK, team sports were off limits, ice rinks were closed, and for the first time in years, Nichols found herself stuck at home while trying to manage her menopause symptoms.

"I would cry, I wasn't sleeping, all these symptoms that were just horrendous and then with COVID as well, I was so low, which wasn't like me."

Seeking help from the doctor resulted in treatment with HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), making a huge difference. A snowball effect had begun.

"Getting the help and feeling better, then obviously you feel better to actually do something about the exercise and get back out there."

What Nichols turned to was her first love – BMX – but little did she know where that first step in digging out her dusty old world championship BMX bike, which she'd nearly disposed of numerous times over the years – would take her.

Return to BMX

"I had no intentions of ever racing a BMX in my life again, let alone at 53 years old," smiles Nichols, thinking back on that moment in September 2021, "but I thought, right, I'm going to actually refurbish my eighties BMX and I'm going to do some of these old BMX events, a bit like the vintage car rallies, I suppose.

"So, you take your old BMX, sit in a field, chat with other people, look at other people's bikes, do a little show, go for a little ride around, and that was the plan of action."

In December, she found herself at a charity BMX ride around London called Santa Cruise, dressed as an Elf.

It was here she met one of the coaches from the Andover BMX Club, who encouraged Nichols to come to the track with her vintage bike to chat to the kids about being world champion.

While there, a few months later, the club loaned Nichols a bike, gloves and helmet so she could try the new style bike and track.

"It's so physically demanding and challenging and the tracks are so different and everything's so different," says Nichols now.

But she loved it.

After a few months of going back to the track for fun, this time 85km away from home, Nichols bought a bike, "just to use it for a bit of training and stuff like that. But then it's like anything, isn't it? You start getting into it.

"I went along to watch a few races to see what the competition's like," says Nichols now, "and this is where the edge started. I was like, 'Oh my God, the competitiveness has come back out of me'."

In December 2022, she was inducted into the inaugural British BMX Hall of Fame as a female pioneer. "That was a huge honour for me," she says.

Put on the spot at the event and asked if the rumours of her imminent return to the sport were true, she took a deep breath, and answered, 'Yes".

Sarah-Jane Nichols was officially back, 35 years after retiring.

'Incredible' Beth Schriever and Kye Whyte

A poster of Nichols winning the world championships found itself on the wall at the end of her marital bed for "inspiration".

Her colleagues at the school where she works in facilities were suddenly discussing if she'd managed to do a 'manual' yet, aka, a wheelie as Nichols previously knew it, the new terms making their way into their lexicon.

Months of training followed, including using the school's gym, and sports hall, through the British winter months, and by March she was ready for her first season of racing since she was a teenager.

"Several months and spills forward and here I am about to embark on a season of racing," Nichols wrote on Instagram. "I am nervous as hell, my tummy is doing cartwheels right now, I don’t think I will sleep but I am looking forward to having fun, making new friends, being part of a great club (Andover BMX) and making new memories."

The season has been somewhat successful.

Courtesy of coming third in the British BMX championships in the 30+ female category, facing formidable opponents with more than 15 years of racing experience, Nichols qualified for the BMX Racing World Championship in May 2024, at the Rock Hill BMX Supercross Track in the United States.

Racing in the 40+ category, Nichols aims have expanded rather from the 'I'll just go to some Old School events and sit in a field' to, "I'm going to train harder than last year.

"My goal was to train hard for my comeback to qualify for the British Championships and to get a podium at the British Championships and I achieved that, and so my goal is very much the same, on a slightly bigger scale for next year.

"I'd love to make the final, that would be amazing. To get a podium would be out of this world."

To that aim, Nichols is heading into the British winter going all in for her world championships, starting with a training session with one Beth Schriever, the British BMX racing gold medallist from Tokyo 2020, having applied for a first-come-first-served ticket to the session.

"Beth and Kye Whyte (Tokyo 2020 silver medallist) doing so well has boosted the sport no end," says Nichols of the British pair while also noting the increase in popularity of the sport after its Olympic debut at Beijing 2008, describing watching the pair win their medals as, "incredible, absolutely incredible".

Meanwhile, the poster serving for her own inspiration has now made its way out of the bedroom and onto the wall at the top of the stairs in her house in the small English village of Bramley.

But that's not only memorabilia decorating the space.

Hanging proudly on the wall is Nichols' world championship-winning bike.