Hannah Roberts broke her back while riding her bike when she was 10 years old. Seven years later, in 2017, she became the first BMX Freestyle World Champion at the inaugural UCI World Championships in Chengdu, China. Now, she is competing in the Paris Olympics, hoping to add more accolades to her championship resume and silver-medal finish from Tokyo, 2020.
A broken back is a unique challenge, but Hannah learned a lot about support, recovery, and drive from the experience. With the consistent backing of her Buchanan, MI community, to becoming a singular representative of women in the sport, Hannah found that neither injuries (and she's had more than her fair share) nor the lack of commercial opportunity for women in BMX could prevent her from rising.
Rooting for Hannah is easy. Perhaps it is a product of the "small town, big heart" (as Hannah referred to her Buchanan home) Michigan community that helped raise her, or because something of her persevering spirit filters through when she competes. After all, BMX is about creative movement, as Hannah said "No one's style is the same [...] you show yourself on your bike." Either way, if we subscribe to the notion that champions are built, Hannah, surely, is the product of a uniquely strong foundation.
The Women's BMX Final is set to start Wednesday, July 31st at 7:10 AM.
Click the link above to hear the full conversation with Hannah Roberts.
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