Sun Sibei shares her secret to staying calm during competitions: Wushu training
The BMX freestyler, part of the world's top-ranked Chinese team, finished top at OQS Shanghai as her teammates swept the first three positions. She tells Olympics.com about how she stayed calm during the contest, thanks to her martial arts background.
Cycling BMX Freestyle
As Sun Sibei prepared for her final BMX freestyle run at the Olympic Qualifier Series Shanghai last month, she resorted to her training to clam her nerves.
And it had nothing to do with cycling. Instead, as she prepared to lay down a run which would score 95.86 points and see her win the contest in front of an adoring Chinese home crowd as her teammates Sun Jiaqi (no relation) and Deng Yawen completed the podium, the 19-year-old turned to her martial arts background.
Before being introduced to BMX freestyle in 2018 when the Chinese national team was formed, Sun Sibei was a wushu practitioner. During inter-disciplinary talent scouting, her ability was spotted and she enjoyed the new sport, choosing to stick at it.
As it turns out, her prior training had some benefits, even though on paper wushu and BMX cycling have nothing in common.
"Participating in some small competitions when I was practising wushu allowed me to accumulate competition experience and adapt to the competitive atmosphere," she told Olympics.com after her victory in Shanghai. "They also laid the foundation for me to cope with the pressure of competitions today."
Sun Sibei's result on home soil means she earned 50 points in the Olympic Qualifier Series standings and leads the way heading into the second stage of OQS in Budapest, Hungary, from 20-23 June. All the action from OQS Budapest including BMX freestyle competitions live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and the official Olympics app for mobile devices.
Sun Sibei poses with her gold trophy after the Women's BMX Freestyle Park event at OQS Shanghai 2024.
Sun Sibei: "Dawdling" personality makes me more cautious in competition
There is another aspect of Sun that she thinks helps her produce strong competition runs.
Many would associate the words "lazy" and "dawdling" with negative connotations. But not Sun, who freely uses those words to describe her personality. The world number two – only Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Hannah Roberts is ranked higher in the UCI BMX Freestyle Park rider rankings – says her consistent performances can also be attributed to her more patient outlook.
"It may be related to my dawdling, slower personality, even lazy. Our coach often calls me lazy! But because of this trait, I'm more cautious and I don't rush during competitions. I'm always trying to be steady, stable and composed."
Last year at the Madrid Urban Sports event in Spain, Sun briefly spoke to Olympics.com as an 18-year-old whose social anxiety and nervousness prevented a longer chat. A year on, things have changed.
While still shy, the teenager is clearly more confident having competed in a naturally expressive sport.
"BMX has made me more outgoing and cheerful," she acknowledged. "I used to be terrified of adapting to the venue at international competitions because everyone was fighting for practice time, and I was scared of getting injured in a collision.
"Now, I'm not afraid anymore. I push myself forward, and I feel I've improved in this regard. I'm a bit more confident and braver."
Sun Sibei aiming to become a well-rounded rider
Incredibly, despite her remarkable 95.86 score in Shanghai, Sun said she would only rate her performance as a six out of 10, because of errors she made on her first run (which still scored 92.72).
"I aimed for stability in the first run, holding back a bit. However, I failed to execute two tricks, which left me disappointed when I saw the score, as it reflected my mistakes," she reflected.
"After the preliminaries, my coach told me that I would be the last to go in the final, so I shouldn't worry about the scores of others. Even if someone ahead of me scores 100, I just need to focus on my performance and do what I am supposed to do."
Her opponents should watch out: Sun's not done improving yet.
"I'll definitely work on optimising my tricks because compared to my teammates, I actually have fewer tricks," she shared. "They have many hand tricks, foot tricks, rotations, flips, while I only have one rotation and hand tricks, very few.
"Although I've achieved decent result, I'm still not well-rounded enough. I'm not a particularly versatile rider, so I want to make myself more well-rounded."
If she obtains one of the maximum two quota spots available to each National Olympic Committee and is selected to go to Paris 2024, she has big family plans in France.
"I want to bring my mother with me and take her sightseeing," Sun said.
Will her dream come true in Budapest?
As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.