Personal information | |
---|---|
Nickname | "Sammy" |
Born | Calgary, Alberta, Canada | March 3, 1986
Height | 1.60 m (5 ft 3 in) |
Weight | 60 kg (130 lb) |
Team information | |
Discipline | BMX (bicycle motocross) |
Role | Racer |
Rider type | Off Road |
Amateur teams | |
1996–? | Staats Bicycles |
?–2004 | Supercross BMX |
Professional teams | |
2005–? | Supercross BMX |
– | Airdrie BMX |
– | CCA National Team |
Samantha "Sammy" Cools (born March 3, 1986) is a Canadian BMX (bicycle motocross) racer. Born in Calgary, Alberta, she was introduced to the sport by her brothers Ken Cools, coach of the New Zealand BMX team, and Greg. [1] She currently lives in Ganddal, Norway.
Winning her very first race at three years of age and her first international race at age 10, [2] she is now a 13-time Canadian national champion and five-time world junior champion. She was coached by Hervé Krebs. At the 2008 UCI BMX World Championships she finished fifth in the elite women event. [3]
Cools competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in the women's BMX. She qualified for the final in the event, but crashed after colliding midair with Gabriela Diaz seconds into the race. Although she did cross the finish line, she was officially classified as "Did not finish" and was ranked seventh. [4]
BMX racing is a type of bicycle racing which features BMX riders sharing a short single-lap circuit or point-to-point course, with multiple banked corners, jumps and rollers. The format of BMX was derived from motocross racing, and sanctioned internationally by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), facilitated by a number of continental, national and local sanctioning bodies.
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.
Donald Robinson is an American professional "New/Current School" Bicycle Motocross (BMX) racer whose prime competitive years are from 1999 to the present. His moniker is "dR", his initials. The use of the lowercase "d" for his given name is perhaps related to his relatively diminutive physical size. A past nickname, "Scrawny", was definitely linked to his small stature, since even when very young he was the smallest child in his age group. It was given to him by Bruce Minton. Like BMX predecessors Mike Miranda and Eric Rupe, Robinson is a devout Christian. He admitted in late 2013 to suffering at least 25 concussions over the course of his career. In the same interview, he advocated for better concussion protocol at the lower levels of BMX racing. Robinson joined the board of directors of concussion-education collaborative The Knockout Project in January 2013.
Alise Rose Willoughby is an American professional "Current School" BMX racing racer who has been racing competitively since 2002. She uses the moniker "The Beast".
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Jill Kintner is a professional American "Mid School" Bicycle Motocross (BMX) and professional mountain cross racer. Her competitive years were 1995 to 2002, 2007 to 2008 in BMX, 2004 to 2009 in mountain cross, and 2010 to present in downhill mountain biking. She switched to the mountain cross discipline full-time after her BMX retirement early in the 2004 season.).
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Amanda Sørensen is a retired Danish amateur BMX cyclist. Having started her sporting career at the age of seven and been admitted to the Danish national cycling team since 2002, Sorensen has mounted numerous Nordic regional titles and top-eight finishes in BMX racing at the European Championships, and admittedly, participated in more than 300 BMX circuits across Australia, the United States, Brazil, and Europe. Before retiring from the sport in September 2009, Sorensen also represented her nation Denmark at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and has been training with personal and head coach Christian Munk Poulsen for Skanderborg BMX Klub throughout her cycling career.
Jana Horáková is a Czech professional BMX cyclist. Having started BMX racing at age fifteen, Horakova has claimed numerous Czech national titles, eight European championship titles, and more importantly, two bronze medals in the women's elite category at the UCI World Championships. She also represented her nation Czech Republic at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and has been racing professionally for most of her sporting career on the Suzuki-RB Team, before signing an exclusive, three-year sponsorship contract with Duratec in 2010.
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The women's BMX racing competition at the 2020 Summer Olympics took place on 29 and 30 July 2021 at the Ariake Urban Sports Park. 24 cyclists from 17 nations competed in the event.
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