FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

Reflecting on the past three months still feels surreal as to how successful it was. Claiming my third World Title, rising to #1 in the UCI World Ranking ladder, leading the Supercross World Cup season, winning three consecutive World Cup Time Trials and winning my first World Cup in Norway. This past weeks racing in Birmingham England was the final stop of my hectic World Cup/Olympic qualifying tour. 2012 has started off being an almost textbook year and I am happy to say that I am in one piece, fit and healthy and have done everything that I can to qualify myself as Australia's #1 female pick for one of the

Joey Gough - World Champion! Many years of training and racing finally paid off for Identiti's Joey Gough on Friday night at the 2012 BMX World Championships in Birmingham. Joey clean swept the competition in the 17+ Female category by winning all her motos and blitzing the final to become World Champion, sending the home crowd wild! Joey now carries the coveted W1 plate for the rest of the year and into 2013. As well as being an incredible rider, Joey is a very popular competitor on the BMX circuit so her win was universally applauded. The Identiti BMX Team is still in their first year of competition so this

South African BMX legend and multiple South African & All Africa champion Sifiso Nhlapo, better known as Skizo 105, has qualified for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Despite his disappointment at missing out on a podium finish at the BMX World Championships in Birmingham, Skizo is delighted at having a second chance to represent his country and his team, MTN-Qhubeka, at the Olympics.

In 2008, Skizo made the podium at the BMX World Champs and qualified for the Beijing Olympics, which he unfortunately crashed out in the final. In 2009, he broke his neck. Never one to give up, he was back on the bike in 2010 and finished second at the World Champs held in South Africa.

In 2011, however, he suffered another stroke of bad luck, injuring his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) early on in the season, which meant he needed surgery and was out of contention for much of the season. As in 2009, he missed out on competing at the World Champs again. 

David Herman (Wheat Ridge, Colo./Free Agent-Rockstar) and Arielle Martin (Spanaway Wash./Intense BMX) led the American effort at the 2012 UCI BMX World Championships with fifth and fourth place efforts in their respective elite main events. Felicia Stancil (Lake Villa, Ill./Factory GT), Maliek Byndloss (Cape Coral, Fla./Ssquared-Answer-Troy Lee) and Danielle George (Palmdale, Calif./Supercross BMX) delivered the only championship (supercross) class medals of the day for the U.S. team in the juniors divisions.

In the elite men’s division Herman led the United States team on Saturday with a fifth-place result. Donny Robinson (Napa, Calif./Hyper Bikes) joined Herman in the eight-man final, finishing just behind in sixth. The American pair finished just off the pace of the elite men’s winner, Australian Sam Willoughby who took home his first world title.

Connor Fields (Henderson, Nev./Chase BMX) took the elite men’s time trial superfinal title at the 2012 UCI BMX World Championships while 17-year old Felicia Stancil (Lake Villa, Ill./Factory GT) earned the junior elite women’s time trial title. Lain van Ogle (Auburn, Wash.) added bronze in the junior men’s event to bring the U.S. elite medal tally to three on Friday. The final rider off in the evening’s time trial superfinal after winning the morning’s qualifying, Fields was able to remove the hometown British favorite Liam Phillips (GBR) from the hotseat, besting his time by just under a second.

The United States opened the 2012 UCI BMX World Challenge & Championships in Birmingham, U.K. as the winningest nation in the young challenge class divisions once again. Seven American earned the right to call themselves the best in the world while the U.S. collected 12 total challenge class medals on Thursday. “All of these young riders coming up race this level of competition all year long. Combine that with the caliber of riders we’ve had in this program in the past and our expectations of these kids are pretty high,” said Jeff Glynn, USA Cycling’s challenge class team manager. “A rider comes to worlds and they realize what it is really like and it quickly becomes their focus for years to come.”

The U.S. team lit up Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena from the start going 1-2-3 in the youngest boys age division, 5-6. Dane Morales (Aliso Viejo, Calif.), 2. Linkin Garcia (La Palma, Calif.) and 3. Dominic Duran (Manteca, Calif.) were the only Americans to enter the contest, beating out more than 40

Last name: Graf, David (Switzerland)

Last race your raced: Papendal, Netherlands

Last holeshot you got: I'm not much of a holeshotter..

Last package you received from a sponsor: Zimtstern clothing and a new 4x bike just came in

Last time you hit up the trails: the weekend before Chula Vista

Last race you won: unfortunately can't remember.. a fun Pumptrack event haha

Last time you went to the gym: always tuesday before racing

Last trails spot you rode: Sheep Hills