BMX Joins the Team GB Family
3rd February 2005by British Cycling
We've known for some time that BMX was due to become part of the Lottery funded GB cycling team and with BMX a part of the Beijing Olympics, the time has now come to start building the support network for Britain's BMX riders who are likely to be competing in 2008.
The GB Team has just appointed its first full-time National BMX Coach, 37 year old Jeremy Hayes. Jeremy has been involved in the sport virtually continuously since the first explosion of interest in the very early eighties. A highly competent rider, he has several national championship wins to his credit in the Cruiser and 25 plus 20inch categories.
Away from the track, he has a wide experience in the leisure and fitness industry, having worked in bike shops, gyms, sports centres as well as spending 11 years with the Territorial Army.
He has also gained extensive experience in Team Management with Haro Bikes Racing Team, which he started and more recently with the highly successful Team Persil BMX team.
Jeremy has also been involved in guiding the career of Britain's brightest young BMX talent Shanaze Reade, who many expect to be a key member of the 2008 Olympic Team. Jeremy built Team Persil around Shanaze, who he recognised as having tremendous talent but not the support required to turn her into a top rider.
Shanaze (right) already has World, European and National titles behind her, despite only being sixteen, so it's a partnership which has already proved itself.
Jeremy is confident that BMX can prove itself through the new GB team set-up
"The talent's already there in this country. We just need to get the best riders on board and get them working with proper training programmes."
Interestingly, Jeremy thinks that there isn't a problem with BMX riders not training enough, but rather that they need to train differently: "I remember riding all day every day as a kid and I think that we'll be asking the riders to become more specific and focussed in their training. I sometimes think that BMX is still perceived as a kids' sport by some people, but Jamie Staff has showed what serious athletes BMX riders are."
Asked what nations are already running effective national team programmes, Jeremy doesn't hesitate to answer: "the French are already there. When you travel to the worlds and see the support team, the doctors, masseurs etc, its really impressive."
One area of training Jeremy is keen to sort out is facilities. He has already identified the Sheffield Dirt Society's indoor BMX track, Wheelbase, as a potential training base for the team, as the only indoor BMX track in the country. But he's equally keen to use the large number of BMX tracks on the Leeds to Mansfield corridor of the M1 "Wheelbase should be crucial to us, being indoor in this climate. But unlike Track riders, BMX rider have to face a huge variety of tracks, so I'm keen our riders get to train on as many tracks as possible."
It's early days, but Jeremy's knowledge and enthusiasm look set to get the GB Team's BMX programme up to speed very quickly.