Putting pedal to the medal

Canada’s BMX freestyle riders have Olympics in their sights

The bikes are rarely on the ground at Joyride 150. Freestylers are riding up the walls of Canada’s preeminent indoor BMX bike park, soaring through the air while flipping and spinning their bikes, and jumping off obstacles, sometimes with no hands or no feet, or both.

Canada’s best riders recently gathered at this sprawling facility in Markham to throw down their top tricks and bike-handling thrills at the Canadian national championships for a medal — and the much bigger goal of growing the sport in Canada on an Olympic deadline.

When Jeffrey Whaley, Canada’s top internationally ranked rider, started competing seriously a decade ago, he knew the image that most people had of BMX freestyle: “It’s not really a real sport, it’s not athletes; it’s more like bums that hang out at the skate park.”

Attitudes have changed, the 27year-old from Montreal says. Those small-frame BMX bikes, which used to be dismissively referred to as “kids’ bikes,” are now tools of an Olympic trade and the sport’s elite riders are potential Olympians.

But support for the sport hasn’t changed as quickly in this country. There were no Canadians in the field when BMX freestyle debuted at the last Summer Games in Tokyo and there’s still little funding for the existing elite riders or for the development of the next wave. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation that’s common in the Canadian sport system: It’s hard to get funding without results, and it’s hard to get results without funding.

Dave Thomas, the general manager at Joyride 150, was recently hired part-time by Cycling Canada to start developing a freestyle program.

“We’ve got a couple of athletes who have independently been competing at the elite level for many years and we are trying our best to support them right now while also looking towards building the pipeline for the future,” Thomas says. “Like everything else, it’s just a matter of balancing funding for everything.”

Cycling Canada, the national sports body, already supports numerous Olympic disciplines, including track, road, mountain bike and BMX racing, so each new category adds to its funding challenges. BMX freestyle riders will be eligible for Sport Canada’s monthly assistance program for the first time next year.

Whaley and fellow Quebecer Maxime Chalifour are Canada’s top-ranked riders and it will be their efforts that determine if the country will be represented at the 2024 Olympics. They’ve come back from serious injuries and travelled to competitions in multiple countries — mostly on their own dime — to try to get Canada ranked high enough to get a single spot in next year’s Olympic qualifying series, which helps determine who gets to compete in Paris.

Two weeks ago, with Canada 16th in the world, it became clear there weren’t enough events they could compete in to improve their ranking enough by Tuesday’s deadline. Now it’s a waiting game. Whaley says that, depending on which countries place in the top six at the qualifying series, there’s a chance that his top 12 result from the world championships will give Canada a spot in the Paris men’s field.

“People always ask me, ‘How many people are we going to get?’ ” Whaley says. “I’m like, ‘Well, there’s only 12 spots,’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, there’s 12 Canadians.’ I’m like, ‘No, there’s 12 spots in the world.’ So it’s a very tight battle.”

Canada won’t have an entry in the women’s field in Paris. Beatrice Trang was the only woman at October’s national championships, and she’s more of an advocate than an elite rider.

“Maybe a girl will see me and say, ‘Hey, I can beat her,’ and hopefully they can compete next year,” says Trang, who came to BMX freestyle from the racing side.

“The reality is that (BMX freestyle) has a lot more support in other countries in terms of bringing up the next generation of riders. And by bringing up the next generation of riders, you’re also bringing up girls.”

Mike Varga, a multiple X Games gold medallist, won the Canadian title in the men’s event with his high-flying tricks and no doubt helped fuel the dreams of the young crowd about what’s possible on a bike. Chalifour took the silver and Whaley the bronze.

Varga, who grew up in Oshawa and now lives in Whitby, says the lack of support from Cycling Canada is a big part of why he hasn’t focused on competing in Paris qualifying events. But, like the others, he sees the massive effect the Olympics have had on the sport at home and abroad.

“You see more parents getting into it with their kids and kind of pushing their kids because they want them to be Olympians,” he says. “Eight-, nine-, 10-year-olds are now riding and, out in China, there are riders doing tricks that we’re doing right now but, you know, at like a really young age. When I was growing up, I didn’t see people at that age doing anything, they were just kind of learning how to ride a bike. Now they’re in training programs.”

That progression doesn’t make it any easier for countries, like Canada, hoping to catch up to the world leaders but it sure makes for a great show, Whaley says.

“Once people start watching BMX, everyone loves it,” he says. “Everyone has ridden a bike so everyone can relate to it and everyone gets their mind blown, because they tried to jump off a curb one time and they almost crashed and they see these guys doing all these crazy stunts on the bike.”