FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

2021 Olympic Champion and 2021 UCI BMX Racing Elite World Champion. Anyone who would have said that in January of 2021 would have been sent off to the clinic. But Bethany Shriever (GBR) did it and had the best year ever. But 2022 has arrived and it's back to racing. After several months of Olympic status celebration it was back to training hard. Beth fills you in on how she prepared for the new season. Sounds like she's ready.

Name: Bethany Shriever
Age: 22
Hometown: Essex, Great Britain

New Team, new motivation. That's how it works sometimes. Ross Cullen has announced today that he will be riding for the TVE / JEE-O team, a professional team based out of The Netherlands and will be team mates with the Smulders sisters. Although everything on the new bike has changed except for a few parts, the feeling on the new ride is great. 2022 can become the breakthrough year for Ross in Elite. He's well prepared.

Name: Ross Cullen
Age: 20
Hometown: Preston - UK
Sponsors: TVE / JEE-O, Renthal, Outskill the risk, Proyouth Nutrition, Madison UK / Shimano UK, KSC Motors, Fuse Protection / Moore Large

Did 2021 turn out the way you wanted?
Ross Cullen: 2021 was a good year of racing full of good and bad performances but by far my favourite yet!

Name: Dean Larsen
Age: 18
Hometown: Sisimiut, Greenland
Hook-ups/Sponsors: Red Bull, SkatePro, Tall Order, FUSE Protection, Centrano distribution,  All Access Freestyle team

The FAT FAVs list:
-Spot to ride: Tjele Efterskole
-BMX video: Kieran Reilly triple flair

In 2021 a new class was introduced, the U23 class. The success of it lead to the class being implemented at all BMX races listed on the UCI calendar. Rising star of the U23 class in 2021 was non other than Mongoose's Asuma Nakai. He was the man to beat and won the World Cup overall title but missed out on the World Championship victory. Still young enough to enter the U23 in 2022 we can't wait to see what Asuma will bring. Hopefully some of them insane whips too (see FATBMX Insta post of 31 January). As far as preparation is concerned, see below.

Name: Asuma Nakai
Age: 21
Hometown: Joetsu, Japan
Sponsors: Mongoose/Xlarge/Motocross International/Oakley/FoxRacing/Shimano/Tioga/Ikon/StanceSocks/WesternRiver/flexdream/CW-X/OgawaRingyo

Did 2021 turn out the way you wanted?
Asuma Nakai: Of course It wasn’t perfect, but really good. I couldn’t achieve my biggest goal of my life which is competing at Tokyo Olympic. Even though Japan has already selected the rider in February 2020, it was held in 2021 so that was a disappointment. But overall, it was really good because I won the first ever U23 UCI World Cup series title. That was special to me.