Hannah Roberts: BMX riding makes me a better person

BMX Freestyle will make its Olympic debut this summer in Tokyo and a young American teenage rider has been drawing a lot of interest in the new cycling event: Hannah Roberts.

The Indiana-born cyclist has been dominant in the sport for some time now and made headlines in 2019, when she earned her second world title in three years after wrapping up a perfect Word Cup season with three wins out of three.

The 19-year-old booked her spot in the U.S. team early in 2020 and since then she's been tipped to become the youngest cycling medallist representing her country since 1912 and the first teenage woman ever to win an Olympic title in the sport.

"I definitely feel the spotlight," Roberts admitted to Olympics.com during an interview from her training camp in North Carolina, just days before leaving for Montpellier, the city in southern France hosting the 2021 UCI Urban World Championships BMX Freestyle, which will run until Tuesday 8 June.

"I've been the gold hopeful since the beginning of 2019. I definitely know that there's external pressure and I know a lot of people want me to do well.

"But in order for me to do that, I guess I have to just kind of block out the external pressure and I have to just stick with a solid run and throw it down, and do it for me rather than other people."

Finding herself

At the end of May, Roberts competed for the first time in over a year in Woodward, Pennsylvania.

Winning that event left her a special taste: "I've seen some mistakes, but it felt very good," she said.

That winning comeback meant a lot for the rider born in South Bend, but brought up in Buchanan, Michigan. She revealed how the postponement of the Games was 'shocking' and took a mental toll on her:

"We had a year with no events. So obviously that hits mentally just because it was the first time in about five or six years that I hadn't traveled at all."

The BMX teen phenom used the time off to regroup and find a purpose for herself. She started afresh in 2021 by getting married to her girlfriend Kelsey, buying a house and also adopting some puppies.

"I took weeks off my bike just to find myself and to get to know exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. And it wasn't that I was riding without a purpose before, but with everything going on, I think I lost my purpose. And it was hard for me to stay motivated."

"So I took a step back and just kind of relearned things that I like to do off my bike, and then when I went back to riding the first time I learned three new tricks. And it was just because I was able to find a happy place away from my bike and that made like being on my bike so much better."

A purpose in riding BMX

It took her some time to figure it out, but now Hannah has found her place as an athlete and also as a woman.

"For me, the reason that I ride is that I want to be the best person that I could be, not only on my bike, but off my bike.

"I think that riding makes me responsible, because if I don't do well, it's not on anybody else. It's on me.

"So [riding] has something that makes me be responsible for myself and something that has made me a better person. So that was one of my reasons why I kept riding over the years. And it took me a minute to figure it out."

Hannah started riding BMX at the age of nine, inspired by her cousin Brett Banasiewicz, who was one of the top riders in the United States.

She's now mentored by 16-time X-Games medallist Ryan Nyquist, who's coaching the US team after missing out on qualifying as an athlete, and believes that it's her time to give back.

"Right now my biggest motivation and what I want my purpose to be is to be inspiring to other people who don't know if they can ride a bike or are too scared to try.

"I just want to be an inspiration to the younger females, and I want to be somebody that they know that they could reach out and talk to.

"That's really my purpose now: it's to ride, to have fun and to inspire the next generation."

BMX Freestyle: We are a family

BMX freestyle is a sister discipline to BMX racing that debuted at Beijing 2008 and it's a judged event where riders have to perform a one-minute routine on park courses with ramps and obstacles.

Riders take part in two runs and are given a score based on several criteria, including difficulty, originality, execution, height and creativity.

Roberts, who in 2019 became the first female ever to land a 360-Tailwhip in competition, explained: "I like to express myself in the sport as trying to be powerful and trying to have either a big showstopper or a bunch of big tricks."

"This sport gives me the ability to do both, to show that I have the power to ride the bike for the full minute and I have the tricks to back it up. So, yeah, I think I'm able to express myself and the person that I am when it comes to riding my bike". 

Why neutral sports fans should watch this new Olympic cycling discipline in Tokyo?

"For the people that are back home watching, I hope that they really enjoy it and can see the fun in it, but also see the family and the community that we have within our sport.

"I mean, we're one of the few sports where, we compete on the course, but off the course, we're best friends. We go to eat together. We talk it out. We even help each other with our runs. Like we want to see everybody succeed, no matter if that means we lose.

"And I think that's the best thing about our sport. So there's one thing that people can take away. It's that we love what we do and we love who we do it with. And we just have a great BMX family when it comes to competitions."

Progress of the sport and gender equality

Roberts is aware that the sport's Olympic debut could represent a huge turning point for its development.

Over the last few years more and more young kids have got into BMX doing "insane things," she remarked.

And she has also seen progress in terms of gender equality. "The sport growing is undeniable," she added.

"When I first started riding in contests, I had obviously the prize purse, which was ridiculously unequal, and we're working towards getting it equal. We've seen it grow in the last year and we've also seen the women's side rapidly progressed in the last year or so.

"As well as the participation numbers, there's been a lot more girls entering the contest. I think at my first event there was only six that entered and now there's about 34 to 43. So that's just completely amazing. It's awesome to see. And I think after the Olympics things will start getting a little bit crazy.

"A lot of people are going to probably want bikes. And I hope that there's a lot of younger kids who really want to start riding and really want to start progressing and work towards the Olympic goal."

Cycling BMX Freestyle competitions will take place at the Airake Urban Sports Park on Saturday 31 July and Sunday 1 August, with both men's and women's Park Finals taking place on the second day.