As part of Whistle Sports No Days Off Series, we take a deeper dive in the world of Hannah Roberts, Olympic Silver Medalist as a BMX Freestyle Athlete.
A Michigan native, Hannah began riding BMX at the young age of 9 following in the footsteps of her cousin, Brett “Mad Dog” Banasiewicz, one of the top riders in America. In 2011, Banasiewicz opened the Kitchen BMX and Skatepark in his hometown of South Bend, a short drive from Hannah’s home. She entered her first BMX competition at the age of 12. At 17, Hannah became the first-ever BMX Freestyle World Champion at the UCI World Championships in Chengdu, China; in 2019 she won the World Championship title again where she became the first female ever to land a 360-Tailwhip.
Along her route to success, Hannah, like many athletes, encountered numerous trips to the hospital as she was learning to grasp the sport. At 10 years old, she pushed too far forward going down a ramp and ended up with a broken back – a fractured T4 and T5 vertebrae – with her teeth lying on the ground as she fell! The injuries did nothing but spur her on to be better than ever. The Kitchen played a big part in her training as a youngster. She begged her family relentlessly to drive her every day, exclaiming: “I wanna ride, I wanna ride, I wanna ride!”
“Please shut up,” they’d beg. “THIS IS MY ONLY DAY OFF.”
Hannah’s BMX career went from strength to strength. After performing with a perfect 2019 World Cup season WINNING EVERY SINGLE World Cup to claim the series title, she went on to win the Pan Am Championships and National Championships that same season.
Last summer, The Olympics Games recognized BMX Freestyle as an Olympic Sport, which made its debut in Tokyo in July 2021. Hannah set her eyes on this next challenge as the first female in BMX Freestyle to qualify for. No Days Off indeed!
So far in the Olympics, Hannah has been crushing it for USA. She brought home Silver in BMX Freestyle’s debut and the first medal for team USA in cycling (check out the video below from her August 5th performance). Not only that incredible accomplishment, Hannah was the first woman at the event to score above a 90.00, earning an OUTSTANDING 96.10! In a quote from Hannah, she explained how nervous she was leading up to the event, but was elated with her performance: “To really do something like that, I mean, it might have been one of the best runs I’ve ever done. I was obviously super stoked.”
Keep an eye on Hannah – her No Days Off mentality is clearly proving she is on track to be bigger than ever in the BMX world!
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