Monday, Feb 7, 2022 • 24min
Game Changers: The weight of a nation, the support of a family - Saya Sakakibara
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The BMX sensation, who's already a five-time world champion.
Saya Sakakibara is an Olympic BMX rider and at 22 she’s already a champion.
Saya’s love for BMX began before she could walk and despite some devastating setbacks, Saya’s never let fear influence her performance.
At the age of four Saya attended practice sessions and races that Kai, her older brother was involved in and her love of the sport of BMX racing grew from there.
At 22 Saya has already amassed a seriously large haul of trophies in her 15 years of riding: four times World Champion, and counting.
Of her incredible success at such an early age, she attributes much of it to her incredibly close family.
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Episode three of Beyond the Ordinary : Game Changers dropping 15th February 2022
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Talking about
Speakers
(2)
Saya Sakakibara
Marlee Silva
Transcript
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Saya Sakakibara
00:06
The feeling of pushing past. That fear is just so exhilarating. It gets your heart pumping and say oh man I was able to live through that.
Share
Marlee Silva
00:14
I'm author and presenter, Marlee Silva. And in this miniseries Game Changers we'll hear stories from elite Australian athlete. Women at the top of their game.
Share
Saya Sakakibara
00:25
When I got into the medical tent I was looking at my arms, I was on the stretcher and I was like is this real? It was a moment many of us might remember from
the Tokyo
Olympics
and then I looked at my jersey and I was it was my olympic kit and I was like no please don't tell me I crashed no not the Olympics
.Share
Marlee Silva
00:45
All eyes were on the 22 year old
BMX
champion from Australia
, Saya Sakakibara
as she competed in her first ever Olympic Games.Share
Saya Sakakibara
00:58
I was so confident in my lead up into the
Olympics
, everything was going well.Share
01:05
Like my training, I really stepped up and even in practice and even in the races beforehand like I was feeling amazing and actually thought that I could win and I actually thought that I could meddle and that's not a feeling that you can kind of make yourself believe, like it's everything that you experience, like how you feel and your results beforehand, everything kind of made me feel like I could definitely do well here in the semifinals,
Saya
placed fourth in the first round and then first in the second.Share
Marlee Silva
01:39
In other words, she was placed pretty comfortably to make it to the olympic final. But before
Saya
got there, something devastating happened, she collided midair with Alise Willoughby
arrival competitor from the U. S.Share
Saya Sakakibara
01:53
She came across quite aggressively and hit me in the air and in the hours like I've lost control now because once you get hit in the end there's very little chance that you can land and be okay and there was no track left for me. So I clicked her back wheel and crushed and she crushed as well. So we both crashed at the same time and I hit my head there, which I didn't know until I was in the medical tent.
Share
Marlee Silva
02:23
It took a while to get her bearings, but finally the realization hit, she had suffered a serious concussion and lost her shot at an olympic gold.
Share
Saya Sakakibara
02:34
I just didn't want it to be real and for the first like minute or a couple of minutes or so I was like okay, I crashed, it's fine. But then when I saw the girls final and like the winners of the medals, that's when it really hit me and was like, gosh, that sucks everything's finished.
Share
02:57
I didn't get a medal, I didn't even get a chance to try for a medal and it's all over and it was just definitely really, really upsetting for me that I didn't really get the chance to give it my everything or show what I can do.
Share
Marlee Silva
03:14
It wasn't exactly the debut, the six time national champion was hoping for, but for someone who has
BMX
flowing through their blood, the ride wasn't over yet.Share
03:27
Saya’s love of
BMX
began before she could even walk as she watched her older brother, Kai
, also a BMX
racer right around their backyard on the Gold Coast
when he first picked up his black, which was when he was two years old with no pedals.Share
Saya Sakakibara
03:42
He just loved it. He loved riding his bike around the backyard and skidding down the hill and, he loved competition as well.
Share
03:52
And when he came across the
BMX
track, BMX
literally just ticked all his boxes, it's fast, it's jumps, it's bikes, it's competition, it's a race and he just absolutely fell in love when Saya
was two years old, her family relocated to Japan
where her mom grew up, Saya
remembers being about four years old in Hachioji
learning to ride on a makeshift racetrack.Share
04:18
I wasn't really doing anything every weekend when I was watching
Kai
race and yeah, they bought me a bike and kind of pushed me into it.Share
04:26
I had literally no choice and I got to say like, I didn't like it at the start, you know, on my first race, I crashed three times on the same jump, cried and went home and didn't touch my bike for like three months and then I'm not sure what brought me back, but I'm sure it was just because
Kai
just loved racing and I could just see his passion and I was just that youngest sibling that wants to copy the older brother and finally I got back on and here we are, It's been it's been a long ride, I guess.Share
04:57
I loved it then, and I continue to love it.
Share
Marlee Silva
05:01
Yeah, that's amazing. And to think you were that young, like, I'm pretty sure for myself, just riding a bike around my neighborhood, I still had training wheels for probably far too long, Was it? Like, did you even need training wheels?
Share
Saya Sakakibara
05:16
My dad actually didn't believe in training wheels, and what I mean by that is not the fact that he just put me on the bike and just here you go, it was more like he believed that kids should learn how to balance on the bike before they learn how to pedal. So with training wheels, you learn how to pedal then you learn how to balance if that makes sense.
Share
05:42
But yeah, for me, and for chi I think he took the pedals and cranks off of my bike, so then I would be like on the seat and learning how to balance, but going forward without pedaling, so I'll be pedaling with my foot on the ground, like kind of walking, and then at some point, as soon as the cranks and pedals went back on, I was able to really get going because the balancing is harder than the pedaling and yeah, I think that made a huge difference on how quickly I was able to transition from peddling on the bike on like flat ground to the
BMX
track.Share
Marlee Silva
06:23
So, you mentioned talking about the origins of your love for
BMX
or growing love of BMX
was really inspired by your brother Kai
and he's also a BMX
rider, How close are the two of you?Share
Saya Sakakibara
06:36
We're really, really close.
Share
06:38
Once we started both doing
BMX
, we were just kids in Japan
, but when we, in 2007, when I was turning eight years old, we moved back to Australia
into Sydney
and there, there was just so much more people racing BMX
, there was so much more tracks, you can go there every weekend if you want and go to a different track every week and it's just, it was like BMX
Heaven for both Kyle and I, and as we grew in the sport, like, our relationship grew closer and closer as well because when cars started training and doing some body weight exercises or sprints or doing some kind of structured training, which is quite early for him.Share
07:20
It was around when he was like 12, he was so dedicated from such a young age and I kind of followed into his footsteps and he pushed me to take me and max a little bit more seriously and I honestly didn't want to train, but I just didn't want to be left behind.
Share
07:38
I think that was more my drive to train because I didn't necessarily feel like I needed to go wake up at six o'clock in the morning to do some like bodyweight training, I'm like, I don't need to do that, but seeing
Kai
being so dedicated, I'm just like, okay, I'll just follow along and yeah, like as we grew up, my love for BMX Group and I kind of found my inner drive to, to train and found like a purpose of training and I found that when I was probably like 17 years old or 18, so quite late, but that was like a good time because that was the time where I stepped up into the junior and elite ranks and that's when things get serious with like olympic points and World Championships
and titles up for grabs.Share
08:35
And that's when we started circling the world circuit together as well, chi and I doing the World Cups doing european stints and yes, spending months Overseas and stuff.
Share
08:47
So, you know, we did spend a lot of time together and we kind of balanced each other out in a way because when
Kai
, he was just like, so like such a perfectionist with everything, it needs everything to be like done on time. And I was a bit more laid back and having that kind of relaxed personality and it really worked.Share
Marlee Silva
09:14
Savings bond with her brother runs deep and in 2020, the unthinkable happened at the World Cup in Bathurst Chi suffered a heavy crash and was left fighting for his life. The accident happened at a critical moment in Kyle's career. The
Olympics
were coming up and up until then his performance wasn't where he wanted it to be. So, at the baftas World Cup
in order to make the olympic team, Kai
had to score a podium finish.Share
Saya Sakakibara
09:41
There was just the crappiest weather, it was raining, it was crazy, windy and There was heaps of Delays. No one knew racing was going to go ahead.
Share
Marlee Silva
09:55
The race did go ahead, but the organizers decided to change the track. The athletes would compete on this meant
Kai
was racing in a situation he hadn't anticipated and he needed to win this race.Share
Saya Sakakibara
10:07
He knew that he had to give it everything in this first race, and I think that was why he was pushing really hard to try and make that move into that second corner and ultimately kind of rushed it a little bit. And yes, his front wheel kind of slid down and face planted into the corner, saying what should all unfold from the sideline.
Share
10:31
It's crazy because I usually don't watch cars race is, I'm not sure why. I just yeah, I don't like to watch people I care about racing when I'm racing and that day, I was actually watching that race for some reason and I saw that crash and I knew straight away. It was going to be bad.
Share
10:52
I could just see it. I didn't even go down to the first aid tent because I knew that I had to race as well and I tried to focus so much of like trying to keep my composure and try not to think too much because I still needed to race but say I didn't get to race because after his accident all events that day were canceled and
Kai
was airlifted to Canberra
hospital blocked out.Share
11:17
Well like the reality of it and I was I was told that he was in a coma but I was like, oh yeah, he'll be fine. I didn't really think about you know his life being threatened or whether he was breathing or not.
Share
11:32
Like I didn't even think about it the next day when I got a phone call early in the morning by my dad and he was like, I think you should come down, he's going into surgery now and we just don't know what's going to happen and that was when it really hit me.
Share
11:47
And yeah, I was crying the whole three hours from Bethany's to
Canberra
and yeah, the next week or so was definitely really hard just seeing him in the hospital bed and his face was so swallowing and it was definitely really hard to see that and you know the doctors don't really know any like they are so amazing.Share
12:16
They're smart, they know they knew what to do to save his life and do that surgery but just even looking at the scans and things like that, they weren't able to say whether he was gonna live or even if he does wake up like what his life would look like and all that could tell us was that it was a very, very severe brain injury and you know, if you type in severe brain injury into google, I definitely did not like what I saw there.
Share
12:47
So I learned not to do that. But yeah, it was definitely a touch and go situation for about, definitely a week or a week or two weeks. And as he kind of started to get better, we were able to take him off the sedation and you know, it was a very long process until he was able to breathe by himself again, open his eyes and then move his hand.
Share
13:18
And then it was, I think about exactly two months when he was able to move into the brain injury unit where he stayed for about a year just doing full rehab from, I think his first week was the first week in physio was sitting up by himself for two minutes. Then the next day was sitting up by himself for three minutes. So just seeing the rock bottom and that was like, that was like max effort for him At the time.
Share
Marlee Silva
13:51
Like I was barely recognizable to his little sister. He was 20 kg lighter and unable to walk or talk.
Share
Saya Sakakibara
13:58
Sometimes I look at photos back like his first couple of days in the rehab center and he looks awful. Like he has absolutely no muscle and he looks so sick. And I think back to like, how did I not freak out when I saw him like this?
Share
14:18
How did I keep my composure? But I think it's just, you know, the body's response to like coping mechanism just to just keep going and just see the positive of like, well, he was able to sit for five minutes today.
Share
14:31
That's crazy. And like, oh, he said yes and no, today, That's awesome. That's more than yesterday.
Share
14:37
And it was just like a day by day thing and every day either my mom, my dad or myself would spend the day with him at the hospital and we'll do like a little recap around dinner time, what he did, like what kind of new things that he did or what was good was bad and all those conversations started to be so positive because it was like, wow, that's so much better than how he was yesterday with me and every day was different.
Share
15:04
Yes.
Share
Marlee Silva
15:05
With his family there bit by bit, I got better and life started to look a little more normal.
Share
Saya Sakakibara
15:12
He's talking, he's walking, he's doing squats with 100 kg, his muscles are coming back and he's back on the bike to and he did a full lap around the
BMX
track a couple of months ago, which is insane. And yeah, it's just been amazing just to see how far he's come and it doesn't seem like he's stopping there.Share
Marlee Silva
15:35
It's an incredible story and one that speaks to not only
Kai's
strength, but Saya
and her family strength to to outsiders.Share
Saya Sakakibara
15:45
The fact that
Saya
is even able to get back on a bike following her brother's accident may seem unbelievable, but not to her, I didn't think for a second that I had to stop because at the time Olympics
were still going ahead and literally two days after I was in Canberra
and I was asking where the gym was because I'm like, I need to keep training because if Kai
is not going to the Olympics
, I need to go.Share
16:13
So, I was straight into training and I think there was definitely, you know, like, we always say that there's definitely risks involved in sport and a sport like
BMX
is a lot of risk, it's not just yourself, you've got seven other riders beside you that is bound to have crashes and injuries and but I think with cars crash, it kind of puts everything into perspective and make sure you take a step back, just be like, okay, this is the worst that could probably happen.Share
16:46
And yeah, it just opened my eyes to the dangers of
BMX
and it definitely was scary. I didn't know when my next crust was going to be and whether that crash was going to be no minor crash or if I was actually going to really hurt myself, but I think it was about six months later I had my crash and I was like okay, it's all good. I had my crash and now now I can move on type thing.Share
17:15
But I think there's a big difference between where he crashed and if he was to crash on the first jump, I think that would have been a different story because I've had fears of crashing on the first jump. Like I've had that a couple of years ago and it took me a while to get over that fear and be able to line up against seven other riders again.
Share
17:42
And if I was to, if he if
Kai
was to crash on the first jump in, that happened to him. I'm not sure if I was going to be able to line up on the gate again because that's probably the scariest part, but the fact that he crashed midway around the track and it was kind of his error. Like it wasn't the fact that someone crashed into him or it was, yeah, it was all his fault and his error.Share
18:11
I kind of, I feel like if I'm in control then I'll be okay and I think that got me through after
Kai's
olympic dreams were taken away, attention honed in on sale, she says she felt the pressure to compete not just for herself but for her brother to that was the whole story and to lead up to the Olympics
, which was which is fine because it was true, but also with that came a little bit of pressure because I wanted that fairy tale story to be complete with a medal to be like, hey, this is what happened, the challenges that we went through and now it's a perfect fairytale ending and that was hard because a lot of people were following that that journey with me, all of my support crew, they were going to support me either way, but there were other people who don't know me and people who just see me in the media who were following that journey and you know, obviously wanted me to do well Yeah, it was just a bit hard when I wasn't able to do that and I felt like I let everyone down because they wanted that story and I shouldn't have to be thinking about that.Share
19:32
I shouldn't have to be this character in the story where someone's kind of made up, but it was also a story that I've made up for myself, that I didn't, I wasn't able to live up to and it was hard to kind of swallow not everything goes the way we planned. It's so cliche, but it's so true and I just had to know and remind myself that results aren't everything and no result will kind of define who I am as a person.
Share
Marlee Silva
20:09
So say with everything that's happened, I think fear is something that a lot of people would think is pretty present in your mind. What is your relationship with fear in regards to the sport at the moment, I sometimes think about how it's too early for me to experience fear.
Share
Saya Sakakibara
20:31
Like a lot of people experience fear, like towards the end of their
BMX
careers where they're, they're sick of crashing a sick of injuries and things like that, but I started to feel it in 2019 where there was probably a period of two months where I crashed On the first jump like 3, 4 times and then the last month was, yeah, I had a concussion and There was such a huge journey to get back to being able to be confident, lining up against seven other girls and going 55 km/h down the hill To jump like a 10 m jump and what I've, what from those experiences is that the fear never actually goes away, you just learn how to manage it and I feel like there's a lot of people who, or there may be extreme or athletes in extreme sports who don't feel fear, I don't know how they don't, but I definitely feel a lot of fear every time I get onto the BMX
track, the biggest thing that I do, leading into each race is just trusting the things that I've done and focusing on the things that you can control and I had to learn how to be like, no, no, that's fine.Share
21:56
It is windy. Yes, the girl next to me is a two times
World Champion
or olympic champion and she is fast, but I can't control what they're doing, what I can control is doing the best start and what I can control is pedaling hard and things like that and just making it simple. So the self talk I have before I race is just clear and concise.Share
Marlee Silva
22:23
Say you're 22 and you've had a couple of big hurdles or setbacks, whatever you want to call them that you've had to face and you can tell that there's so much resilience that's already been built within you, but you've still got a whole life ahead of your whole career even. So what are your hopes, looking into the future for that career a lot?
Share
Saya Sakakibara
22:48
I don't know what's ahead of me. There's a long road ahead. Hopefully there's some successes. I'm sure there's gonna be more failures.
Share
22:57
But I just know that this whole experience as an athlete, there's not many people who get to do this life and I'm just appreciative of what I can do day to day and the people I get to work with, the people I get to meet, you know, the places I get to go, it's just such an amazing life that I get to live.
Share
23:21
So just be grateful for everything that I get to do and just soak up the experience as much as I can and yeah, I think that's just what I can do for the next however many years I get to do via Maxwell.
Share
Marlee Silva
23:38
Seo has her sights set on the World Championships in 2022 but for now she's focused on getting her health back on track and when she steps up,
Australia
will be cheering her on from the sidelines.Share
23:54
In the next episode of this mini series, game changes were speaking with
Kelly Cartwright
of course, at the age of 15, I didn't know a lot about it, but I didn't know you die. I'm Marlee Silva your host and this is beyond the ordinary. A Red Bull
podcast. Follow us on Spotify, Apple
podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, you can discover more about game changes at Red Bull
dot com forward slash game changes.Share
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Saya Sakakibara
Marlee Silva