How differing journeys have led BMX racers Beth Shriever and Saya Sakakibara towards a shared dream of Paris 2024 gold
Britain’s Olympic champion and Australia’s overall World Cup title holder share the same goal for Paris 2024. Yet both have travelled down very different pathways on their quest for Olympic glory.
Tokyo 2020 could not have been more different for Beth Shriever and Saya Sakakibara.
While Britain’s Shriever stormed to Olympic gold, ending the reign of two-time champion and BMX racing legend Mariana Pajon, the Australian’s crash in the semi-finals left her Olympic dreams in tatters.
It was a cruel ending to Sakakibara’s campaign in Japan’s capital, which showcased the potential danger of the sport - something she had been only too aware of after a horror accident in 2020 seriously injured her brother and fellow BMX racer, Kai.
For Sakakibara, who had become one of the most recognisable faces of Team Australia heading into the Games, that loss in Tokyo cruelly rewrote the “fairytale ending” she had formed in her mind as she sought to make the podium as a tribute to her brother.
"I was building this story about Kai, coming back [to Japan] and representing the both of us, and I developed an ideal fairytale ending to that story around how cool it would be to finish with a medal,” she said in an interview with Wide World of Sports.
"Then when that didn't happen, it was like, 'Oh'. It definitely took me some time to process that but at the time I did not know that I needed to."
Shriever’s journey to Olympic gold had been strewn with challenges of a different sort.
After Rio 2016, UK sport cut its funding for BMX racing and she found herself having to raise money for her Tokyo dreams.
“I was living at home, working part-time (as a teaching assistant) and then it basically just got to the stage where it was like, if you really wanna do this and have the best chance I've got to go to these races, I've got to pay for a good coach," she told Olympics.com.
"So we set up the crowdfunding page and we did get enough to pay for a coach at the time, travelled to Australia for three or four weeks, and got me to other events to get points (needed to qualify for the 2020 Games). They weren't the best points because I wasn't doing that great, but they were points nonetheless, and it was enough to get me to Tokyo.”
Pathways diverge after dramatic experiences in Tokyo
While Shriever’s victory in Tokyo made her a national celebrity and kickstarted a new period of her life in which she won her maiden World Championship in 2021 and was awarded an MBE from the British royal family, Sakakibara’s post-Olympics experience took her on a different path.
For a while, she considered stepping away from the sport completely, with injuries - including a series of concussions - leaving her wracked with self-doubt and, worse than that, fearful of the danger that doubt could put you in.
"With a sport like BMX, I feel like if you have that hesitation, that's when things go wrong,” she said in 2022. “I know what the risks involved are with hesitation.”
But slowly but surely Sakaibara has returned to confidence and the results have seen her become an even stronger racer than ever before.
Now Shriever and Sakakibara are the two favourites for Olympic gold in Paris after both enjoyed sensational campaigns in 2023.
Beth Shriever and Saya Sakakibara close to inseparable in race for Olympic glory
Over the entirety of last year’s BMX World Cup season, only two women found themselves on the top of the podium: Shriever and Sakakibara.
The Brit won four of the first six races, while Sakakibara finished the season in consistently brilliant form, triumphing in five of the final seven.
It left the Australian on top of the world as she took home her first-ever overall World Cup title.
While missing out on that title may have stung for Shriever, second place in the standings was accompanied by a second World Championship gold as she won the women’s elite race at her home championship in Glasgow.
Sakakbiara has continued her imperious form in 2024, taking victory in the first two races of the season in Rotorua, New Zealand. And, as always, Shriever was close to her side, finishing third and second to secure two more podiums.
Now with the World Cup season about to continue in Brisbane, Australia on 24-25 February, and the Olympic Games just over five months away, there is little to choose between Australia's and Britain’s finest who are both chasing Olympic gold, despite the contrasting paths their journeys have taken them on.