Two new national champions minted at Rampfest

Australia has two new national champions after Brandon Loupos and Sarah Nicki won the elite men and women categories respectively at the 2022 AusCycling BMX Freestyle National Championships on the weekend.

Loupos performed strongly on his return from the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships last week, taking the win ahead of Victorian Jake Wallwork and emerging talent Josh Matthews, while Nicki’s star continues to rise, winning her first national championship from Mylee Toohey and Anais Prince.

The 15-year-old from Canberra said her result at Nationals validated all the hard work and training she had been putting in with her coach Tyson Jones-Penny.

“I’ve been working on mainly just riding with more speed, more height, getting bigger airs. It’s been a bit of a focus this last year. I was also really pleased that I got through the whole run without pulling out on a trick. So, I did all the tricks in my run, and completed the run,” Nicki said.

Nicki felt the title indicated she was pushing to take her riding to the next level, and had learnt a lot over the last two weeks where she rode in her first UCI World Cup before returning for the National Championship.

“The Worlds taught me really how different the style of competition is there, like how the pressure’s different, how you’re competing with that many girls, and that many skill levels. But the comp life is super cool, it’s awesome riding with everyone. It’s different to what I’m used to at the local, but it’s awesome.”

The Canberran also revealed the influence Natalya Deihm is having on her young career.

“Natalya’s helped heaps. She’s been helping me mentally, just helping my confidence, helping me get around, planning runs. She’s been a great help, really. Teaching me about the comp life, how it is,” said Nicki.

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French rider Nico Werle claimed top spot in the masters competition, with the Australian national champion crown going to Dave McComb, who retains the title. Jak Mohr was the best performing amateur, while Philipp Frueh took out the expert category in the BMX Flatland competition.

More than 400 spectators and participants attended this year’s event, with Rampfest also hosting a meet and greet session off the park, where fans and junior riders met and mingled with elite riders, and a show and shine exhibition featuring more than 50 bikes across the history of BMX.

Replay of Day 2 at Rampfest.

Elite Men	Elite Women	Masters	Amateurs
Brandon Loupos	Sarah Nicki	Nico Werle (FRA)	Jak Mohr
Jake Wallwork	Mylee Toohey	Dave McComb	Cooper Wilson
Josh Matthews	Anais Prince	Tyson Jones-Peni	Xavier Gilbee
Alec Danelutti	Shanae Richmond		Keegan Pryor
Jason Watts			Marcus Johnston
Samual Grace			Dylan Mckane
Liam Quinlivan			Caiden Cernius
			William Spedding
			Brodie Quick
			Michael Wilson
			Orlando Oakley
			Miles Eckhardt

Under 15s	Under 13s	Under 11s	Under 7s
Koby Carroll	Tol Papadimas	Koby Clayton	Lennox Lenton
Roman Riches DepiazzI	Aleksandr Kiselev	Rafael Manning	Jakey McKay
Nate Mackaller	Samuel da Costa	Slater Lyttle	Tyler Phillips
Mitchell Brown	Flynn Will	Emilio Martin	Kaiden Klein
Kale Mather	Lucas Jankowski	Gus Gangemi	Arlo Bouffioux
Wyatt Markwell		Cooper Tonna
Jayden Knobben		Hudson Lovett
Tom Barry		Duncan Crawford
Jai Larsen		Ky De Vries
Koa Butler		Hugo Wood

Flatland Expert Class	Flatland Open Class	Flatland Beginner Class
Philipp Frueh	Gonzalo Bellanti	Paul Grzinic
Shaun Jarvis	Heru Anwari
Yuki Tokui	Botay Agata