BMX Superstar Hannah Roberts Is Embracing A Second Chance At Olympic Gold

This time around, Hannah Roberts is doing it all differently.

Her Olympic silver medal in BMX freestyle in 2021 was a thoroughly impressive feat, though admittedly not what Roberts, the odds-on favorite for gold going into the Tokyo Games, was angling for. Now, with three years and a good deal more life experience behind her, she is ready to try again in Paris.

“A lot of people think I have unfinished business,” remarked Roberts, who added world titles in 2022 and 2023 to bring her total to five in all. Just 16 when she won her first world title, Roberts has ridden atop the world rankings for much of the past seven years.

And while Olympic gold is obviously the dream this time around too, Roberts, 22, is hesitant to say that the medal is her main motivation.

“It would be really cool to say that I’m an Olympic gold medalist,” she conceded. “That’s super awesome, and it’s another thing to add to the resume, but I have a pretty solid understanding that my resume as it is right now is very, very strong. As cool as it would be to bring it back for Team USA, it wouldn’t affect me much as a person. It wouldn’t change anything about my life. It would just be extremely special to win it with my whole family there.”

This laid-back attitude is just one difference between the Hannah Roberts who went to Tokyo in 2021 and the one headed to Paris this summer. Another is the way Roberts has approached her second Games: with positivity and preparation.

“I have had one of the best journeys ever, leading up,” she said. “We’re traveling a lot, and I’m taking everything in. And that was something I could never do for Tokyo.”

In 2021 Roberts was 19 and by her own account had “grown up fast.” She was newly married, had just bought a house and, as the alpha cyclist of her generation, was the face of BMX freestyle as the sport made its Olympic debut. 

Looking back, she was not ready for a lot of that, including the Olympic part.

“I’ve never actually said this, but by the time that March or April came around, I wasn’t prepared at all to go to the Games,” Roberts admitted. Stuck in an apathetic rut, she had all but stopped riding, and it showed. “Physically I was in the worst shape of my entire life, and on the bike I was not confident at all.”

Sometime during that strange second COVID spring, the fact that the Olympics was around the corner became real to Roberts, and the alarm bells in her head began clanging — loudly. “I think it was like 100 days out where I was like, oh, shoot,” she said. “So I changed everything.”

Like a student who procrastinates until the final is too close for comfort, Roberts crammed hard for the Tokyo Games. Riding took precedence over everything else: almost frantically, she spent countless hours on her bike, in the gym, paying strict attention to what she ate, not sleeping well, and pushing every potential distraction out of her life.

She got into shape and has the Olympic silver to show for it. But the Games itself were a blur. She looks at pictures of herself in the Olympic Village, hanging out with her fellow riders, and thinks, did I really do that?

“And I thought that was so sad,” she said, “where that was one of the biggest events of my entire life and I can’t remember a thing about it.”

One of the few things she retains is the second run of the BMX final, when Charlotte Worthington of Great Britain came out of nowhere to lay down the ride of her life, scoring a monster 97.5 points. Roberts, who had been in the lead with 96.1 for her first effort, felt the pressure shift back onto her shoulders. As she dropped in for her second chance, she knew she would need a near perfect ride to secure gold.

She can still feel her left foot slip on her pedal as she landed her second big skill, slowing her momentum just five seconds into the run. In the millisecond after, Roberts knew the Olympic title was gone. She cut the run short, took a bow and limped away on a broken foot.

Before the cameras she shrugged, but in reality she was crushed.

“I made just a dumb mistake that I wasn’t able to let go of for a really, really long time,” she said. “A lot of people on the internet told me that I gave up, which was whatever. As soon as my foot slipped my pedal, there was nothing I could do. I had to be perfect. I knew that it had to be perfect, and it wasn’t. So that was a super hard pill to swallow.”

In Paris, she’ll get another chance. So much has happened. She’s world champion again. She’s divorced. But she has been smarter about training and managing her injuries and emotions. She’s soaking it all in and savoring being number one again, even as she looks over her shoulder at the young, ambitious Chinese riders that she counts among her toughest competition.

“I’m just super proud of the way I’ve been handling it this time around, where I can separate myself from riding and what I need to do at my house, and honestly it’s just been such a better journey,” she said. “I feel stronger and I feel more confident on my bike. Overall I feel like hopefully if everything works out I can put down a better run. I do feel like I have a better chance at getting gold, both physically and mentally.”

That’s still not the main thing, though.

“Whatever happens, happens,” she added. “If I get last place, I’m still a two-time Olympian. Either way, I’m stoked. I’m living my dream.”

Blythe Lawrence has covered four Olympic Games and is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc. Follow her on Twitter @_BlytheLawrence.