Paris, France, July 31, 2024: Coming into this Olympic Games, Chinese BMX rider Deng Yawen had an ambition to promote BMX freestyle in China.
With that goal in mind, she couldn’t have done any more than winning gold in the BMX freestyle women’s park at the urban park venue of La Concorde 2 on Wednesday.
It was the first medal of any colour for China in this sport and will no doubt promote BMX freestyle more than she could have imagined.
Deng, 18, set the tone with an impressive 92.50 in her first run, firmly in the lead. But she did not stop there.
On her second run, she improved her score to 92.60, topping the leaderboard with the two highest scores of the competition.
Perris Benegas of the United States won the silver medal with her second-run score of 90.70 and Australia’s Natalya Diehm took the bronze with her first-round effort of 88.80.
Deng began the sport in 2017, following an invitation from a BMX coach scouting for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. She chose BMX over javelin due to family decision, as they believed BMX offered a new and exciting opportunity with its inauguration at Tokyo 2020.
Now she has made a name for herself – and for China – at Paris 2024.