Mainstream Press Realizes BMX a Sport
April 30, 2008 – 1:15 pm PT by GregTags: Olympics —
In what has got to be a first, BMX has gotten two mentions in national press within a span of 24 hours. While some BMX stories (Stephen Murray’s tragic injury, for example) get some attention, it has taken the Olympics to bring BMX to the mainstream in a big way.
Yesterday BMX was featured on the front of the New York Times website (it may also have shown up in the actual paper — but on the front of the site is pretty darn impressive) and this morning a couple of riders were given a segment on NBC’s Today show.
The NY Times story was about a BMX racer named Arielle Martin who is trying to qualify for the Olympics while her husband serves in Iraq. The Today segment was a bit lighter, just featuring a bunch of riders showing off their stuff at Rockefeller Plaza in NYC (you can see some video at the site — the embed codes don’t work for crap). But it is 100 days until the games kick off, so the timing is not coincidental.
It’s all good, I suppose. It will be nice to see BMX in the Olympics come August but for many fans, racing on a track isn’t BMX what BMX is all about. But maybe some day street, vert and dirt will get their chance. What was funny about the NBC story was that it used some Dew Tour footage (since it airs on NBC) to show off the event. Of course, BMX racing is only a demo event at one of the AST’s stops. The photo above is from 2006 in San Jose.
Until then, be prepared to see more and more of BMX — the new Olympic sport! — in your local paper or on the TV news.
