Lee Valley VeloPark is a cycling centre in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London, England. It is owned and managed by Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, and it was opened to the public in March 2014. The facility was one of the permanent venues for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Cycling has been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the 1896 Summer Olympics, at which a road race and five track events were held. Mountain bike racing entered the Olympic programme at the Atlanta Olympics, followed by BMX racing in 2008 and freestyle BMX in 2021. Before the 2020 Summer Olympics, all events were speed races, but the 2020 programme featured BMX freestyle for the first time.
Marianne Vos is a Dutch multi-discipline cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam Visma–Lease a Bike.
Shanaze Danielle Reade is a British former bicycle motocross (BMX) racer and track cyclist whose prime competitive years began in 2002. She has won the UCI BMX World Championships three times. Reade is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Irish mother.
Sir Jason Francis Kenny, is an English former track cyclist, specialising in the individual and team sprints. Kenny is the holder of most Olympic gold medals (7) and medals (9) for a British athlete. Kenny's seven Olympic gold medals place him joint 15th by reference to gold medals won in the Summer Olympic games since 1896. He is the single holder of the records for both most Olympic golds and Olympic medals for a cyclist.
Liam Peter Phillips is a BMX racing cyclist representing Great Britain. In 2013 he won the UCI BMX World Championships, his first.
Hein Verbruggen was a Dutch sports administrator who was president of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) from 1991 till 2005 and president of SportAccord from 2004 to 2013. He was an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2008. Previously, he was a member of the IOC and Chairman of the Coordination Commission for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing in 2008. He is highly suspected to have protected Lance Armstrong.
The Netherlands competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. Dutch athletes have competed in every Summer Olympic Games since their official debut in 1908, with the exception of the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, which the Netherlands boycotted because of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. The Netherlands National Olympic Committee sent the nation's smallest delegation to the Games since 1988. A total of 175 athletes, 95 men and 80 women, competed in 18 sports.
Annemiek van Vleuten is a retired Dutch professional road racing cyclist, who most recently rode for UCI Women's WorldTeam Movistar Team.
Jan Derksen was a Dutch professional cyclist. He was world professional track sprint champion in 1946 and 1957. He was the only rider to win a gold medal at Milan, Italy, in 1939 – in the world amateur sprint – before the championship was abandoned at the outbreak of the Second World War. Derksen became a riders' agent and race promoter after retiring from racing and lived in a house on the outskirts of Amsterdam, named after the Ordrup track in Denmark where he won the professional omnium – akin to a pentathlon in athletics – 10 times.
Caroline Buchanan is an Australian cyclist who has won multiple world championships in BMX and mountain biking. She represented Australia at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics in the women's BMX event.
Connor Evan Fields is an American professional BMX racer. He represented the United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the men's BMX event and finished 7th overall. He represented the United States again at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the men's BMX event. He won the gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, and became the first American to win an Olympic BMX gold.
Twan van Gendt is a Dutch racing cyclist who represents the Netherlands in BMX. He was selected to represent the Netherlands at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the men's BMX event, where he placed 5th in the final. In June 2015, he competed in the inaugural European Games, for the Netherlands in cycling, more specifically, Men's BMX. He earned a silver medal.
Laura Smulders is a Dutch racing cyclist who represents the Netherlands in BMX. She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women's BMX event where she won the bronze medal.
Sam Willoughby is an Australian former BMX racing cyclist. He won an Olympic silver medal in 2012. He suffered a career-ending injury in 2016 and has since worked on his own rehabilitation, and as his wife's coach.
Belgium competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. Since the nation's official debut in 1900, Belgian athletes had appeared in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games, with the exception of the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. The Belgian team consisted of 108 athletes, 70 men and 38 women, across nineteen sports.
Hugo Haak is a Dutch track cyclist and revered coach. He represented his nation at the 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. At the 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships he won the silver medal in the team sprint. At the 2015 UEC European Track Championships he became European Champion in the team sprint. Haak is a five time Dutch National Champion: twice in the individual time trial, once in keirin, individual sprint and team sprint.
Niek Kimmann is a Dutch BMX racing cyclist. Kimmann is the reigning Olympic Champion BMX Racing, a three-time World Champion, one-time European Champion, three-time Dutch Champion, and two-time World Cup Supercross winner. He is also a two-time junior World Champion.
Bethany Kate Shriever is an elite British cyclist, competing as a BMX racer. A World Junior champion in 2017, and winner of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup final event in Zolder in 2018, in 2021 Shriever won both the Olympic and World titles, equalling the feat of Colombian legend Mariana Pajón, who won Olympic silver. In 2022 Shriever completed the full set of gold medals by winning the 2022 UEC BMX Racing European Championships; in doing so, she became the first BMX racing cyclist in history to hold all three titles simultaneously.
Kye Whyte is a British male BMX racer. He was a silver medallist at the 2020 Summer Olympics. He competed in the fourteenth series of Dancing on Ice in 2022.
