Saya Sakakibara has shed tears of joy with her inspirational brother Kai after she overcame COVID-19 to pedal furiously to Olympic glory on her BMX rocket bike.
Three years after Australia watched in horror when she was stretchered away following a crash in a semi-final at the Tokyo Games, the 24-year-old Gold Coast rider completed her emotional comeback in triumph at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines circuit on Friday.
Watched by Kai, who had suffered a life-changing brain injury in a crash in a World Cup race in Bathurst in 2020, Sakakibara delivered the race of her life in the final to become the first Australian BMX racer to win Olympic gold.
Then the woman who wears vest No.77, Kai’s old race number, hugged him in emotional trackside scenes.
“He said, ‘I’m proud of you’ and I saw him when he was watching me on the podium and when the national anthem was playing, I just couldn’t stop the tears,” explained Sakakibara.
“We’ve gone through so much. And it’s super special he was here and also my parents as well.”:
There was another celebration too as Sakakibara, who had repeated concussion problems after Tokyo and considered retirement, hugged her French partner Romain Mahieu, who minutes before had won bronze in a home country sweep of the men’s race.
Sakakibara’s victory followed a first women’s BMX freestyle medal for Australia, won by fellow Queenslander Natalya Diehm on Wednesday.
It is the second Australian cycling gold, following Grace Brown’s win on day one in the road time trial. The last time Australian cyclists won multiple golds at an Olympics was the record six at Athens in 2004.
Sakakibara delivered a performance of consistent brilliance and dominance, winning all seven of her races by a street – a feat all the more incredible because she had tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday and feared her Games were over.
“My heart kind of sank. I was like, ‘oh, no, like, I can’t believe it’. Your mind goes to the worst-case scenario – I can’t believe like this is how it ends.
“I was on the ginger tea with honey lemon. I was on the zinc lozenges, some anti-histamine. Antibiotics, anti-viral, and rest, not stressing. Lots of water. And ginger shots, my throat was on fire!
“Without the team around me. I don’t think I would have really like recovered so quickly. I was able to get back on my feet on Wednesday, do a practice, produced a negative test and I was good as new on Thursday.”
In the past, the double World Cup overall champion has occasionally buckled in the biggest one-off finals, like May’s world championships when she was excellent in the prelims but bombed in the final.
“I was worried I was going to be one of those racers that doesn’t get those big, big wins – and I was really determined to make sure that that that doesn’t happen,” she said.
She knew within “a split second” that she was going to win the final after another great start, blitzing away on the 400m course to win in 34.231 seconds, with Dutch racer Manon Veenstra a distant runner-up in 34.954.
Lauren Reynolds, only the third Australian woman to compete in cycling at four Olympics, failed to make the final.
Fifteen minutes before Sakakibara’s triumph, compatriot Izaac Kennedy suffered a dramatic fall on the first corner of the men’s final, dipping down wide and swiftly on the first of the U-bends, only to clip the side of the track and go tumbling at high speed.
Slumped in misery on the track, the good news was that he was able to struggle to his feet, remount and slowly make his way back to the finish.
France swept the men’s medals amid remarkable scenes of celebration, with President Emmanuel Macron in the house, as Joris Daudet won ahead of Sylvain Andre and Mahieu.
