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Historic Asian Games Debut: China's Freestyle BMX Team Wins Gold and Two Bronzes as Sun Sibei Stages Comeback
Reporter 欧亚时报编辑部
On September 27, 2026, at the 20th Asian Games jointly hosted by Aichi Prefecture and the city of Nagoya in Japan, freestyle BMX made its debut as an official medal sport at the Asiad. In the new extreme-sport discipline's first-ever Asian Games competition, Team China delivered a standout performance, claiming one gold medal and two bronze medals — the country's best-ever single-Games showing in BMX disciplines at the Asian Games. The 2026 Asian Games run from September 19 to October 4 in Aichi-Nagoya, marking the third time Japan has hosted Asia's largest multi-sport event, after Tokyo in 1958 and Hiroshima in 1994.
The headline event was the women's BMX freestyle park final. China's Sun Sibei endured a dramatic ride: she crashed during pre-competition warm-up and sat only in second place after the first round, a far from ideal position. But in the decisive second run she held her nerve and went all-out, scoring 93.80 points to complete the comeback and claim the Asian Games' first-ever gold medal in this event — also the first gold awarded in freestyle BMX since the discipline joined the Asiad programme. Japan's Ozawa Miharu took silver with 91.20 points, while Sun Sibei's teammate Sun Jiaqi scored 90.20 to win bronze, meaning China swept both the gold and bronze in the event. Afterward, Sun Sibei said the gold had given her greater confidence for future challenges, and according to CGTN, she has already set her sights on an Olympic podium finish.
Bronze medalist Sun Jiaqi is another leading figure on China's freestyle BMX team. Hailing from Henan and currently a student at Beijing Sport University, she was among the first Chinese women freestyle BMX riders to make a mark on the international stage, known for high-difficulty, highly watchable tricks and regarded as one of the few riders worldwide capable of landing some of the sport's hardest moves. She competed in the women's park final at the 2024 Paris Olympics — the first time a Chinese athlete had competed in Olympic freestyle BMX — but finished seventh after a mistake in that final. Her Asian Games bronze is seen as a new breakthrough built on that growing big-event experience.
In the men's freestyle BMX park final, China's Sha Xiaolong added another bronze for the national team. The rider from Liangshan, Sichuan, previously won the men's elite group title at a 2023 Chinese Freestyle BMX League stage race and had just won the men's elite park final at the 2026 Asian Freestyle BMX Championships held in Zigong, Sichuan — marking him as one of the rising figures in China's men's programme in recent years. Combined with the women's gold and bronze, China's overall haul from freestyle BMX park's Asian Games debut came to one gold and two bronze medals, matching exactly the result reported by Xinhua.
Freestyle BMX and BMX racing are the sport's two main disciplines. Racing has been on the Asian Games programme since the 2010 Guangzhou Asiad, while freestyle only made its Asian Games debut at Aichi-Nagoya 2026, becoming one of this edition's most closely watched new additions. Internationally, the IOC announced in 2017 that freestyle BMX would become an official Tokyo 2020 Olympic event, a decision that directly prompted China to form a national team and build a systematic training and selection programme around the same time. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, China's Deng Yawen won gold in the women's park final, marking a historic breakthrough for Chinese freestyle BMX on the Olympic stage and setting a benchmark for younger riders such as Sun Sibei and Sun Jiaqi.
Notably, Team China also performed well in BMX racing at this edition of the Games: Liao Wanyi won silver in the women's racing event, while Lin Haochao took bronze in the men's racing event. Combined with the one gold and two bronzes from freestyle, China's overall haul across both BMX disciplines at these Asian Games came to one gold, one silver and three bronze medals — a clear improvement over previous editions that points to broad-based progress in Chinese BMX in recent years.
Historically, Chinese BMX traces back to the 1990s, when enthusiasts began forming their own clubs. In 2003, the IOC's announcement that BMX racing would be an official event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics directly spurred China to formally establish the sport as a national programme, with its first appearance at the National Games in 2004, followed by the gradual build-out of domestic racing leagues and championships. Systematic development of freestyle BMX in China came later, beginning after the 2017 announcement that it would join the Tokyo 2020 Olympic programme, after which a national team was formed and accelerated its progress by hiring high-level foreign coaches and competing in top domestic and international events. After nearly a decade of investment, China's freestyle BMX team has since reached the podium at the Olympics and world championships, and this Asian Games performance is the latest fruit of that sustained effort.
More broadly, as a flagship extreme sport known for its creative freedom, high entertainment value and youth-driven culture, freestyle BMX has rapidly gained global popularity in recent years, becoming an arena where countries compete to cultivate young talent and secure an edge in an emerging discipline. China sweeping a gold medal and multiple podium finishes in its very first Asian Games appearance in the sport not only reinforces its competitive standing in this new discipline, but also gives the Chinese BMX team valuable big-event experience and confidence heading toward the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The Games continue through October 4, and host Aichi-Nagoya added several sports popular with young audiences to this edition's programme, with freestyle BMX drawing particular attention. As the closing date approaches, China's overall medal tally across events continues to be updated, but the BMX team's "harvest on debut" performance in this newly added sport has already become one of the most striking highlights of these Games, injecting fresh momentum into the further popularisation and development of the sport in China. Industry observers note that as more young people discover and fall in love with BMX through skate parks and public urban sports facilities, China's pool of reserve talent in the sport is likely to expand further, laying a sturdier foundation for continued success on the international stage.
