Australia has a new golden girl after BMX racer Saya Sakakibara secured the nation’s first-ever Olympic BMX gold in a stunning race at Paris 2024. But if her racing wasn’t enough to have you proud to call her an Aussie, perhaps her post-race interview will be.
I like to think if I won an Olympic gold medal, my post-match interview would not be safe for breakfast television — and it turns out Sakakibara’s wasn’t safe either.
In her post-race interview with Channel 9’s Brooke Boney, Sakakibara said she just did what she had to do to win the race.
“I knew it comes down to like a split second and all I had to do was fucking go…and I just fucking went for it!” she said.
The victory comes three years after Sakakibara was stretchered off the course at Tokyo 2020 following a nasty crash that left her battling a severe concussion.
Her crash came just a year after her brother Kai suffered a crash at the World Cup race in Bathurst in 2020 that left him with a life-changing brain injury. Saya has credited her brother as being her biggest inspiration in the sport.
“My family is here. Everything that I’ve been through in the last two to three years … this was what got me going. I can’t talk, I’m sorry,” she said through tears.
“I just want to see my parents. I couldn’t see them in the crowd. I knew that, either way, I was going to end in tears.
Sakakibara also got diagnosed with COVID earlier this week, throwing her chance at competing — let alone winning — in doubt.
“From the start of this week, I had COVID and I thought, ‘I can’t believe this’.
“But I just wanted to make sure it is a gold Olympic moment.
“Either way, it was going to end in tears, and I wanted to make sure they are happy tears.”
After celebrating with her family, she caught up with Boney again, and when Boney said the network didn’t hold her not-safe-for-TV language against her, she proceeded to immediately drop another f-bomb for good measure.
Honestly, iconic.
Sakakibara’s partner Romain Mahieu, who won bronze in the men’s event, was at the finish line to celebrate with her after the victory.
It has been a successful Olympics for Australian cycling, with Sakakibara’s gold joining Grace Brown‘s gold in the individual time trial, and Natalya Diehm‘s BMX freestyle bronze to make three medals in the sport at Paris 2024.
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