Australia’s Olympic freestyle BMX hopes are riding on Logan who is living the dream

AUSTRALA’S best chance of a cycling gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics might just be a 23-year-old who spends five hours a day doing tricks on his BMX bike at a skate park.

Freestyle BMX star Logan Martin is Australia's big medal hope when the sport makes its Olympic debut in Tokyo.

AUSTRALA’S best chance of a cycling gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics might just be a 23-year-old who spends five hours a day doing tricks on his BMX bike at a skate park.

Logan Martin admits he’s living the dream on the Gold Coast but what he’s doing is very serious business after his sport of freestyle BMX was added to the Olympic program.

Martin is the two-time reigning world cup series champion who has never raced BMX but started freestyle at the age of 14.

“I moved close to a skatepark, about a minute away, and ended up getting a bike and started going down there with my brother and never looked back,” he said.

Next week he heads to China with the Australian team for the inaugural UCI Urban World Championships from November 8-12 which forms part of the pathway to Tokyo.

“You get two one-minute runs and they do qualifying, top 24 into the semi-finals and then top 12 into finals,” Martin said.

“It’s absolutely amazing that it’s in the Olympics. It’s only going to expand the viewing of freestyle BMX and kids are going to see it on TV and want to try it out.”

Throughout his career he has avoided major injury and considers himself lucky to have only broken a collarbone and hand, and dislocated his shoulder.

“Pretty good considering what we are doing,” he said.

He doesn’t have a job and his typical training day is riding his bike for 4-5 hours then hitting the gym in the afternoon.

“Pretty much that’s all I do every day. I practice my tricks, go to the skatepark and ride different set ups.”

Other members of the Australian team heading to next month’s world titles include Brandon Loupus, Kyle Baldock, Janine Jungfels, Tristan Aarts and Rylan Kindness.

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Originally published as Australia’s Olympic freestyle BMX hopes are riding on Logan who is living the dream