Teen Hannah Roberts rises to top in BMX

SOUTH BEND, IND. » Hannah Roberts first climbed on a BMX bike as a child to try and follow in her cousin’s tracks.

She has made a name for herself with her own high-flying tricks.

The next potential star for USA Cycling in the Summer Games is getting ready for her senior year of high school. The 16-year-old Roberts, already one of the best BMX freestyle riders in the world, is helping blaze a trail for women in the Olympics.

“Girls don’t have as much support as the guys have had. Nobody has really taken this side of the sport as seriously, (saying) ‘Oh, they’re just girls,”’ Roberts said.

Organizers around the world are paying attention now, especially after the Olympics added freestyle as a medal sport for the Tokyo Games in 2020. A staple of the Summer X Games, BMX freestyle joins the Olympic roster as

part of an effort to give the Games a more youthful and urban appeal .

It should also give the United States a chance to grab more medals. Like BMX racing, which has been in the Olympics since 2008, freestyle traces its roots to Southern California in the 1970s.

“The near future is really bright for our team in terms of ... the number of athletes in the top 10 or 12 in the world and there are a lot of American flags there. We feel like we invented the sport right here in the United States,” said Scott Schnitzspahn, USA Cycling’s vice president of elite athletics.

“Right now as we go into Tokyo, we’re really excited about our chances as a team. These athletes are going to be front and center at the Olympics at one of the few new disciplines,” he said.

A rich BMX history hasn’t always translated into success at the Olympics. The United States broke through for gold in BMX racing when Connor Fields won the men’s race two summers ago at the Rio Games. Alise Willoughby took silver in the women’s race to make for a banner BMX showing for the Americans after being shut out in London in 2012.

Fields and Willoughby are expected to be top contenders again in Tokyo, while American riders also dominate the UCI world rankings on the freestyle side, a good sign for 2020.

Roberts was the 2017 UCI BMX Freestyle Park world champion. Perhaps just as impressively, she is a National Honor Society student back home in Buchanan, Michigan.