Video: How Sam Willoughby became BMX World Champion

Winning the world title was something BMX racer Sam Willoughby had dreamed about since riding around in the backyard of his Adelaide home as a six-year-old.

By 2012, Willoughby – now aged 20 – was on the cusp of turning that dream into a reality.

He had already won two junior world titles, and finished second at three world cups leading up to the BMX World Championships in Birmingham that year.

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“I was kind of knocking on the door and just hadn't quite finished it off at the end of the day at each of those races. Coming into worlds, my focus was pretty narrow,” Willoughby said.

“I was pretty hungry. I’d won two junior world titles and at that point and I felt that I was due, like that was the one thing that I'd wanted to tick off in my career since I was sort of six years old.”

Willoughby knew the key to claiming victory in the final of the world championship was to start from Gate 1.

On the tight indoor track, the race would be won or lost at turn one, and positioning was everything.

As the gate dropped, Willoughby executed his race plan to perfection. Taking off like a rocket from Gate 1, he hit the corner in first position – The first win of the race.

And from there, he didn’t look back.

No other rider came close to Willoughby from that point onward, as he went full gas to the finish line to claim the 2012 world title.

It was a moment of pure joy and exhilaration. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing leading up to that race.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

A sliced hand, an ear infection, and a self-imposed coffee ban: Willoughby’s lead up to possibly the biggest race of his life was far from perfect.

Looking back on journals he kept during his time competing, he recalls how the week before the 2012 World Championships unfolded.

“The week before on the Sunday, I went to do a training session in the hotel room on the rollers, and when I was doing the quick release up on my seat pole, it snapped and sliced my hand,” Willoughby recalled.

“I had to go to the hospital and get a bunch of stitches and tetanus shots and all of that because it was an old training bike with a rusty seat clamp, so they were pretty worried about it.

“It's still a bit of a scar there. Somehow it was just past the point of affecting my grip.”

The coffee lover also had a self-imposed caffeine ban during the week leading up to the race. It was part of a mantra Willoughby had during competition.

“It was like I felt like I had to sacrifice or suffer something to be entitled to success. Obviously, you trained to do all those things, but that was never enough. Like I had to have something that I felt like I was giving up to earn success and also something that just sort of shut my mind off a bit,” he said.

As if giving up coffee wasn’t enough, Willoughby punished himself further by spending time where others were enjoying it.

“Every morning I'd walk to the Starbucks down the road from the hotel and I'd make myself sit in there while they were brewing coffee and like everyone coming in for work to get coffee.

“And I'd make myself sit in there and read my book and have to deal with smelling it, but not being able to have one, which sounds a little bit like a psychopath, but that was like those little things that I really enjoyed feeling like I was, you know, giving something up and kind of creating that calm before the storm.”

And then the night before the race, Willoughby began to feel the effects of an ear infection.

“I never really felt that I came back up from all the stuff that sort of happened; I felt pretty weak, despite how much I was resting.”

EMBRACING THE SPOTLIGHT

Competing at the elite level of sport comes the added pressure of being in the public eye and “under the microscope”, Willoughby said.

But at the World Championships, rather than shy away from the public pressure, Willoughby decided he would embrace it as a way to take control.

“I knew that to win a world championship, you had to go up there in a somewhat vulnerable state and perform with everyone watching you,” he said.

“I felt that I wanted to play into it that week a bit and force myself into dealing with that. So I had these pink headphones and just started creating this like, make everyone look at me (situation), like, ‘What is this idiot doing?’ And I had the strength to control the situation and stay in my lane.

“It was probably one race that I reflect back on where I think I was the most like just in sort of tunnel vision and able to execute with that.”

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TURNING ‘SWEET DREAMS’ TO REALITY

Creating a routine, creating a process, and ticking boxes was the key to Willoughby’s success on the track.

“I'd pick a song at the start of the day, and that was kind of the song for the day. It was generally like Marilyn Manson, Sweet Dreams, and it was just kind of a repetitive beat, like a bit rocky so it was kind of upbeat. But it was very repetitive and that's sort of what I wanted my day to be.

“So everything I did, I guess, was more or less cue to create a mentality that I wanted to execute.

“I had seen my preparation as somewhat of like a funnel just sitting up, you know, when I was behind the gates, in an indoor arena like that, sort of staring up to the lights and the back seats of the arena.

“And then I start to roll into the gate, funnelling that down towards looking at turn one, and then sitting there as like (they’re) calling names out and staring at the first jump. And then it's like the starter says, ‘Okay, riders’, and then I'm funnelling that back to looking down at my tyre meeting the gate. And that was like, it's my way of just narrowing my focus.”

25 SECONDS TO BECOME THE BEST IN THE WORLD

The day of the race, Willoughby tried to make things as normal as possible.

In the morning, he watched the Crows play Collingwood in the hotel with his Dad, who was in Birmingham supporting Willoughby with his mum.

“I wanted to get my mind off things a bit,” he said.

The race itself, however, is one Willoughby doesn’t remember too much about.

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“I remember everything externally around it in the lead up and celebration after. But the actual lap, the only thing that I do remember is getting to the bottom of the hill and out of my peripheral seeing a rider from the outside, which was Maris Strombergs, who was the gold medalist at the time,” Willoughby said.

“I could tell he was like a hair ahead of me, but I knew I had Lane 1 and I just needed to get my get my back wheel over the first jump and reaccelerate, and then I would be able to hold him off,” Willoughby recalled.

“So that was a huge tick. And then just coming out of there, it was just flat, flat to the floor like nothing. I definitely wasn't holding back anything. It was just full speed. See how fast I could go. I knew that once you had sort of clean air out front it was going to be pretty hard for someone to get around in that tight track.”

Once he crossed the finish line, the reality of what he had just achieved sunk in.

“I think it was just an outburst of emotions and everything coming through the sport as a young kid and dreaming of that, you know, having an ice cream lid on my bike in the backyard that had W1 written on it,” he said.

“And then within the terms of that week, it's like holding myself back so much and trying to stay so in the moment that when you cross that line, it's just like this huge release of adrenaline and it worked. I did it.”

After celebrating into the night, on his way back to the hotel, Willoughby ran into a group of British fans who had won money for picking him in the sweepstakes.

DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF CHAMPIONS

About 12 months ago Willoughby took on the role as head coach of BMX racing with AusCycling, where he works with the next batch of Aussie talent in preparation for the UCI Cycling World Championships, and the 2024 Paris Olympics.

It’s a role that has its own challenge, but that Willoughby is relishing.

“I would say the successes or the highs are even higher when you're from the coaching standpoint, because you really feel a part of someone else's journey,” Willoughby said.

“I know some of my most memorable victories were my wife's world championships that she won right after my injury, and being along the journey for some of that and even just the little day to day wins in training. I feel like I was good at understanding that process and celebrating those little wins along the way.

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“The part that I love about the job is trying to … learn the individual’s personality and then try to look back at why I did what I did at times and help them create their own sort of version of that.

“You have to let them go through that and not try to just like blurt out this 20-plus years of experience in one conversation and really help and allow them to make mistakes, allow them to fail at times and create their own path and their own journey.”

About the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships

The 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships will take in Glasgow from August 3–13. The Australian Cycling Team will be in action across road, track, BMX racing, BMX freestyle, mountain bike, trials and para-cycling, with exclusive coverage from AusCycling.