Star bounces back after 'fairytale' shattered

Australian BMX star Saya Sakakibara was one of the faces of the nation's Tokyo 2020 Olympic campaign.

In the lead-up to the Games, Australia became enamoured with Sakakibara, a mixed-race cyclist with cultural ties to Japan, who was riding not only for herself but for her older brother Kai.

The Sakakibara siblings had long dreamed of going to the Olympics together and were destined to do so in Tokyo before Kai suffered a life-changing brain injury after crashing heavily in a World Cup race in Bathurst in 2020.

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But for all the heartache, Kai's accident would not be the only misfortune on the track that would shape Sakakibara's introduction to the Olympic stage.

In a cruel twist of fate, Sakakibara's hope of a podium finish in Tokyo was lost after she suffered a horror fall in the third run of her semi final.

The ensuing images of the then-21-year-old being loaded onto a stretcher instantly shattered hearts around the nation.

"In Tokyo, as much as I was trying not to let the media [attention] affect me, it did in the end," Sakakibara tells Wide World of Sports.

"I was building this story about Kai, coming back [to Japan] and representing the both of us, and I developed an ideal fairytale ending to that story around how cool it would be to finish with a medal.

"Then when that didn't happen, it was like, 'Oh'.

"It definitely took me some time to process that but at the time I did not know that I needed to."

While Sakakibara escaped catastrophic injuries in the crash, she sustained a concussion, triggering a frustrating battle with repeat concussions.

"[After Tokyo] I did not take the time to recover mentally. I was mainly thinking about how I was going to get back on the bike as soon as possible," Sakakibara says.

"I threw myself into racing again and tried to make up for that failure in Tokyo — at the time I thought it was a big failure."

While Sakakibara bounced back from her Olympic heartbreak by claiming her maiden national title later that year, come 2022 she suffered lung bruising, along with a fresh concussion in another crash.

Struggling to return from injury, at her lowest points Sakakibara considered quitting BMX altogether.

"I thought about giving it up last year," she says

"I was just terrified.

"Every time I lined up at the starting gate, I convinced myself that I was going to crash and it really made me rethink if this was a sport for me and if I should continue in it.

"It wasn't a fun time in my life and I thought that it was enough to give it all up."

But after a few weeks of sitting with her decision, Sakakibara realised she had unfinished business with the sport.

"I just had this weird nagging feeling of, 'Yeah, you're not done here yet', and I thought I would regret it for the rest of my life if I did not give it another go," she says.

"Once I had made that decision, I knew that I had to change things, a lot of things, and approach [competing] differently to the way I had been.

"I made a lot of changes and came into this season with a fresh mindset.

"I changed my bike brand, I changed coaches, I cut my hair off — [I changed] all those kind of little things that helped me feel more empowered and made me feel more in control of my riding, my career and my image.

"I just wanted to feel like myself again.

"This season I honestly just wanted to find my purpose in BMX and rediscover my relationship with the sport because up until that point, everything was done with my brother."

With time, Sakakibara shifted her perspective from always thinking that she was going to crash during a race to believing that she would win, and she did not look back.

Capping the most successful season of her career, Sakakibara won five World Cup rounds to be crowned the 2023 UCI BMX World Cup champion. She also won her third consecutive national title and finished fourth at the world championships.

"It's definitely not something that I wrote out for myself this year," she says.

"Every World Cup that I came into I just wanted to see how far I could get and unexpectedly, it turned into really good results one after the other."

But now, all eyes turn to the Olympic year and the build-up to Paris, with the 24-year-old again a favourite for a podium placing.

"This season was a confidence booster but when it finished, I did not think, 'Yep, I'm definitely going to win [in Paris] next year'," Sakakibara says.

"I still feel like I have so much more work to do.

"I just wanted to get back into training straight away because this off-season is quite short as next season is starting earlier. So, I just wanted to get stuck in, make some gains at the back end of the year and then start next year's really busy season on a high and carry on the momentum.

"For me [to qualify], I just need to keep doing what I'm doing — win races, get podiums at World Cups and stay healthy."

At her second Olympics, Sakakibara is hoping to take what she learned in Tokyo and be better prepared for Paris. Part of this includes rewriting the fairytale ending to her Olympic story so that it centres on herself. 

"My dream has always been to win a gold medal at the Olympics and that has not changed," she says.

"But now it's just me out there. I don't have to worry about anyone else.

"All I have to think about is me, what I need to do [on the track] and doing those things well."