BMX Mayhem in the Middle East: The World’s Best Throw Down in Riyadh

Nov 11, 2025

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 925 times

The 2025 UCI Urban Cycling World Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, didn’t just raise the bar — it catapulted it into orbit. Both the Men’s and Women’s BMX Park finals went full throttle, turning the desert heat into a pressure cooker of next-level progression.

Men’s Park: Every Trick Counts

Right from the start, it was clear that this wasn’t going to be your average final. Nikita Fominov was the first to drop and immediately set the tone — a quad truckdriver, 360 double tailwhip to barspin over the box, and a 180 over the 3.5-meter spine before finishing with a backflip windshield wiper. That run alone could have bagged a podium twelve months ago. In Riyadh? It was good for 11th with an 86.20. Let that sink in.

Frenchman Benjamin Daldy followed and went absolutely nuclear: a no-handed double backflip, double flairs, a front bike flip over that monster spine, and an opposite 360 backflip and 720 tailwhip. Unreal. And yet — dead last in the 12-man final. The message was clear: go big or get buried.

As the dust settled, the UCI judges had a near impossible task. Anthony Jeanjean, qualifying in ninth, threw down a textbook second run packed with precision and control. Opposite tricks, unique lines, and that buttery double flair on the quarter pipe and not the "resi landing one"— it all came together for a 94.44. That score became the target.

Marcus Christopher (USA) came charging after it, firing through the course with his trademark speed and raw power. His first run had everyone watching the scoreboard, but his second didn’t land as planned. He ended just 0.43 shy of Jeanjean, settling for silver.

Logan Martin (AUS), the Olympic champ and former world title holder, clawed his way to third, edging out former UCI world champions Rim Nakamura (JPN), Brandon Loupos (AUS), Justin Dowell (USA), and 2024 Olympic gold medalist Jose Torres Gil (ARG). It was a heavyweight lineup, and the difference between the rainbow jersey and sixth place came down to fractions.

Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly the first place you’d think of for a BMX revolution, but with local sessions now rolling and another UCI World Championship event already locked in for 2026, that might change faster than you think. We've seen what happened in China.....

Women’s Park: China Owns the Podium

Then came the Women’s Park final — and the showdown was just as wild. Twelve of the planet’s best riders had two runs to make magic happen. Best score counts, so it was all-in from the moment the riders dropped into the ramp.

China came in heavy, sending four riders into the final. Top qualifier Sun Jiaqi and her teammate Sun Sibei led the charge, with Japan’s Miharu Ozawa rounding out the top three qualifiers. Riders from the USA, Australia, Hungary, Germany, and Colombia filled out the rest of the heat, ready to fight for the podium.

But fighting for a podium spot in 2025 means doing things that, just two years ago, were unthinkable. Miharu Ozawa stomped 720 barspins, backflip tailwhips, and truckdrivers over the 3.5-meter spine — and still didn’t crack the medals.

China’s Fan Xiaotong came in hot, detonating a run that included cliffhangers over the box (a trick few men even dare to try), a no-handed backflip, a frontflip, and an opposite flair into the UCI quarter. Bronze, and every bit earned.

Then it was the battle of the Suns. Sun Sibei vs. Sun Jiaqi under the Riyadh lights. Jiaqi threw down double tailwhips, 360 double whips over the box, a backflip X-up, and a tailwhip to barspin for a 93.08 — a score that would win almost anywhere else. But not here.

Sibei’s second run was pure domination: 360 tailwhips, flairs, a monster 360 over the spine, double barspins, and a 720 so clean it could have been drawn with a ruler. Her 95.86 sealed it — gold and the 2025 UCI World Championship title in BMX Park Women.

Six-time world champ Hannah Roberts (USA) had one last shot after slipping up in her first run. She went for broke but couldn’t put it together, leaving the 2025 crown in Chinese hands — and confirming that the women’s field has officially gone interstellar.

A New Era of BMX Freestyle

From Fominov’s windshield wiper flip to Sibei’s flawless 720s, Riyadh showed that BMX Freestyle is evolving faster than ever. The tricks, the execution, and the confidence levels are rewriting what’s possible — and with the global scene spreading to new corners of the world, the next stop might just be crazier.

Riyadh delivered. BMX Freestyle tricks have never looked this insane.

Results 2025 UCI Urban Cycling World Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Men Park:
1 Anthony JEANJEAN 27 FRA 2000 UCI Ranking points
2 Marcus CHRISTOPHER 23 USA 1700
3 Logan MARTIN 32 AUS 1500
4 Rimu NAKAMURA 23 JPN 1350
5 Baios Brandon LOUPOS 32 AUS 1200
6 Justin DOWELL 25 USA 1050
7 Jose TORRES GIL 30 ARG 950
8 Jordan CLARK 26 GBR 850
9 Jude JONES 24 GBR 750
10 Reef WAY 20 GBR 650
11 Nikita FOMINOV 26 *** 600
12 Benjamin DALDY 18 FRA 550
13 Bryce TRYON 25 USA 500
14 Luca BERTRAND 23 FRA 450
15 Alec DANELUTTI 25 AUS 400
16 Gustavo BATISTA DE OLIVEIRA 23 BRA 350
17 Lars KINDERMANN 18 GER 300
18 Zoltán ÚJVÁRY 25 HUN 260
19 Jacob THIEM 25 USA 220
20 Maxime CHALIFOUR 26 CAN 180
21 Jaka REMEC 20 SLO 150
22 Tom VAN DEN BOGAARD 29 NED 120
23 Marin RANTEŠ 30 CRO 90
24 Nick BRUCE 33 USA 80
25 Mike VARGA 29 CAN 70
26 Ernests ZEBOLDS 26 LAT 60
27 Juan Camilo CAICEDO HURTADO 23 COL 50
28 Kaede OZAWA 18 JPN 45
29 Jose CEDANO CABRERA 28 CHI 40
30 Felipe Herison ALVES ALEXANDRE 26 BRA 35
31 Kevin FABREGUE 30 FRA 33
32 Manuel TURONE 18 ARG 31
33 Reece DABREO 23 GBR 29
34 Jeffrey WHALEY 29 CAN 27
35 Wiktor SAMOJLIK 17 POL 25
36 Caio DE OLIVEIRA SOUSA 32 BRA 23
37 Nate MCCALLISTER 26 USA 21
38 Tianwang WEI 21 CHN 19
39 Kevin Aaron PERAZA GARCIA 31 MEX 18
40 Tomáš TOHOL 21 SVK 17
41 Anar ALIEV 22 *** 16
42 Dean FLORIAN 26 GER 15
43 Xavier WRIGHT 21 CAN 14
44 Samual GRACE 22 AUS 13
45 Xavier GILBEE 19 AUS 12
46 Saul VILAR MAGDALENO 18 ESP 10
47 Shoa MATSUMOTO 16 JPN 8
48 Arturs VIRDZINIEKS 21 LAT 6
49 Michael BEAUFORT 18 NED 4
50 Mikuláš ŘEHOŘÍK 22 CZE 2
51 Tom CLEMENS 20 GER
52 Nazar NAZAROV 23 KAZ
53 Martynas LAGAUSKAS 29 LTU
54 Saithan PHETNUM 29 THA
55 Kenneth Fabian TENCIO ESQUIVEL 32 CRC
56 Péter NÁHLIK 25 HUN
Patryk TEUL 30 POL DNS

Women Park:

1 Sibei SUN 20 CHN 2000 UCI Ranking points
2 Jiaqi SUN 21 CHN 1700
3 Xiaotong FAN 19 CHN 1500
4 Miharu OZAWA 16 JPN 1350
5 Noémi MOLNÁR 15 HUN 1200
6 Honglin XIA 19 CHN 1050
7 Shuhua ZHAO 23 CHN 950
8 Natalya DIEHM 28 AUS 850
9 Queen VILLEGAS SERNA 22 COL 750
10 Hannah ROBERTS 24 USA 650
11 Kim Lea MÜLLER 23 GER 600
12 Sarah SKOTNICKI 18 AUS 550
13 Mio YOSHIDA 15 JPN 500
14 Shanshan LEI 19 CHN 450
15 Eduarda BORDIGNON 25 BRA 400
16 Lillyana SEIDLER 18 GER 350
17 Lara Marie LESSMANN 25 GER 300
18 Valeriia LIUBIMOVA 21 FRA 260
19 Macarena PEREZ GRASSET 29 CHI 220
20 Elsa RENDALL TODD 17 GBR 180
21 Teresa FERNANDEZ-MIRANDA AZCOAGA 31 ESP 150
22 Maëlys TURINI 25 FRA 120
23 Carolina DE SOUZA BITTENCOURT 25 BRA 90
24 Lizsurley VILLEGAS SERNA 22 COL 80
25 Indy KRÄMER 17 NED 70
26 Ekaterina KRUGLOVA 31 *** 60
27 Lucia ČAJKOVÁ 23 SVK 50
Nikita DUCARROZ 29 SUI DNS
Sasha PARDOE 19 GBR DNS