BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation.
The Union Cycliste Internationale is the world governing body for sports cycling and oversees international competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle, Switzerland.
BMX racing is a type of off-road bicycle racing. The format of BMX was derived from motocross racing. BMX bicycle races are sprint races on purpose-built off-road single-lap race tracks. The track usually consists of a starting gate for up to eight racers, a groomed, serpentine, dirt race course made of various jumps and rollers and a finish line. The course is usually about 15 feet (4.6 m) wide and has large banked corners, which are angled inward, that help the riders maintain speed. The sport of BMX racing is facilitated by a number of regional and international sanctioning bodies. They provide rules for sanctioning the conduct of the flying, specify age group and skill-level classifications among the racers, and maintain some kind of points-accumulation system over the racing season. The sport is very family oriented and largely participant-driven, with riders ranging in age from 2 to 70, and over. Professional ranks exist for both men and women, where the age ranges from 17 to over 40 years old.
Cycle sport is competitive physical activity using bicycles. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, cyclo-cross, mountain bike racing, track cycling, BMX, and cycle speedway. Non-racing cycling sports include artistic cycling, cycle polo, freestyle BMX, mountain bike trials and cycleball. The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is the world governing body for cycling and international competitive cycling events. The International Human Powered Vehicle Association is the governing body for human-powered vehicles that imposes far fewer restrictions on their design than does the UCI. The UltraMarathon Cycling Association is the governing body for many ultra-distance cycling races.
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.
The National Bicycle League (NBL) was a United States–based Bicycle Motocross (BMX) sports sanctioning body originally based in Deerfield Beach, Florida, but after several moves it was based in Hilliard, Ohio. It was created by George Edward Esser in 1974 as first the bicycle auxiliary of the National Motorcycle League (NML) then set up as an independent non-profit organization unlike the earlier National Bicycle Association (NBA) and the later American Bicycle Association (ABA). George Esser played a major part in establishing Bicycle Motocross racing in Florida and shortly after the East Coast of the United States as Ernie Alexander did in California and the West Coast. The organization that sanctions bicycle motocross races in the United States/Canada is now known as USA BMX.
David "Tinker" Juarez is an American former professional BMX and cross-country mountain bike racer. His prime competitive years in BMX were from 1978 to 1984 and in mountain bike racing 1986 to 2005. Since late 2005, he has competed as a Marathon mountain bike racer. In all three disciplines, he has won numerous national and international competitions. Most recently, Juarez finished third in the 2006 Race Across America Endurance bicycle race.
Canada, represented by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, from August 8 to 24, 2008. Canadian athletes had competed in every Summer Olympic Games since 1900 with the exception of 1980, which were boycotted in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Canada sent 332 athletes in 25 sports, the seventh largest team at the games and Canada's largest since 1988. Canada did not send a team in handball, volleyball or basketball. Kayaker and 2004 Summer Olympics gold medalist Adam van Koeverden was the flag bearer at the opening ceremonies; Karen Cockburn bore the flag at the closing.
Evelyn Yesenia García Marroquín is a Salvadoran cycle racer, who specialises as an all-rounder, having won time-trials and mountain stages in the past. She has won the Vuelta a El Salvador on two occasions, the only woman to do so, in 2004 and 2007.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to cycling:
Cycling has been contested at the Pan American Games since the inaugural games in, 1951, without ever leaving the program.
The cycling competitions of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were held at four venues scheduled to host Eighteen events between 6 August and 21 August.
The cycling competitions of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo featured 22 events in five disciplines. The 2020 Olympics were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cycling competitions at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto were held July 10 to 25, 2015 at four different venues. The BMX competitions took place at the Centennial Park Pan Am BMX Centre in Toronto, the mountain biking competitions happened at the Hardwood Ski and Bike in Oro-Medonte, due to naming rights the venue was known as the latter for the duration of the games. The road races happened in the streets of Downtown Toronto with the start and finish being adjacent to the Ontario Place West Channel. Finally the track cycling events occurred at the Milton Velodrome in Milton. The road cycling time trials happened in the streets surrounding the velodrome.
Venezuela competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. It was the nation's eighteenth consecutive appearance at the Summer Olympics.
For the cycling competitions at the 2020 Summer Olympics, the following qualification systems are in place.
The following is the qualification system and qualified countries for the cycling at the 2019 Pan American Games competition in Lima, Peru.
Ecuador competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Originally scheduled to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020, the Games have been postponed to 23 July to 8 August 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the nation's fifteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics, and its most successful to date. The country won its third, fourth, and fifth ever medals, two golds and one silver, respectively, during the games.
The cycling competitions of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are scheduled to run at four different venues from 27 July to 11 August, featuring twenty-two events across five disciplines.
Argentina 
Mexico 
Peru 
Colombia 
Uruguay 
United States 
Venezuela 
Cuba 
Canada 
