KIERAN REILLY likes taking risks. Last year, the Gateshead-born BMX rider became the first person in history to complete a triple flair – a jump with three complete 360-degree rotations, taken off and landed on a wooden ramp. It made him a social-media sensation, and in BMX circles, guaranteed his status for life.

With the support and financial backing of Red Bull, who were happy to continue funding him as one of their star stunt riders, Reilly could have spent the rest of his riding career planning and executing ever more elaborate tricks and routines. Instead, he had his eyes on something even more special.

What if, as well as being a stunt rider, he could win the biggest sporting prize of all, an Olympic gold medal? It would mean shelving the social media and putting his Red Bull tie-up on hold. It would also mean an intense competition schedule instead of a series of exhibitions and events that did not involve the pressure of being up against world-class rivals.

The easy decision would have been to forget about trying to qualify for Paris. But from the moment he started riding in his native North-East, Reilly has never really gone in for the easy option. So while he might be in California this week, showing off his skills at the X-Games, the 22-year-old’s main focus for the next few weeks is the World Cycling Championships in Glasgow. Last month, Reilly won European Games gold in BMX freestyle. Become World champion next month, and Britain will be guaranteed a place at the Olympics next summer.

“I’ve made the right decision,” said Reilly, who swapped his North-East base for Corby in Northamptonshire, the hub of GB’s high-performance BMX community, in 2020. “I feel like I’ll always love doing the social media stuff and making content, and I’m sure I’ll go back to doing that alongside the competitions.

“But for me, it just felt like the right time to try this. I knew this was going to be a massive commitment, going into Paris. For at least two years, it was going to be crazy competing, in a lot of competitions and with a lot of sacrifice. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do the Red Bull projects – the time wouldn’t allow it, and you wouldn’t want to get injured doing something like that.

“But I also knew that, after Paris, I’ll have two years before the next round of qualifying starts, so I can go off in a different direction then if I want to. I was lucky enough to get the (triple flair) project done in the year after Covid, so it was then about getting my head down and making this work.

“To go to an event of that calibre and be an Olympian would be amazing. There’s not that many people who get the chance to do both sides of BMX riding. At first, I hated the pressure of competing, but now I thrive off it.

“When I’m training, I know that the harder I train, the less pressure I’ll feel at the event. My riding has progressed so much through competing that when I got back to doing a video project, I’m probably going to be able to do something better because of what the competitions have made me do.”

Reilly’s competitive instincts were certainly in evidence as he claimed Team GB’s first gold medal at the European Games in Poland last month. After qualifying for the final in third place, he delivered two incredibly impressive trick-filled runs to secure his first European title.

It was a major step forward in his competitive career, and confirmed his ability to succeed at the very highest level. It also came at his first multi-sport Games, another important staging post along the road to the Paris Olympics.

“It was my biggest win to date,” said Reilly, who is one of Team GB’s National Lottery funded athletes. “I’ve podiumed before that – I’ve podiumed at a World Cup – but it was such a big deal just because the biggest riders in Europe were there, and in Europe, we’ve arguably got 50 per cent of the best riders in the world.

“At that event, I was up against Olympians who did well at Tokyo, and they’re the exact people who I’ll be trying to beat to try to get my spot at Paris. That was a high for me.

“I felt like I trained a little bit differently and I had a bit more pressure on myself because it was tough to even get selected with GB only having two riders. We’ve got a team of seven guys who are so close in the points ranking and trying to outperform each other at each event. Getting selected as one of the two riders for that was great, so I knew I had to go there and prove it was the right decision to choose me.

“I think that bit of pressure helped me to perform as I did. Training up to it, I was treating it as if it was a miniature Games. It wasn’t just the European Championships, it was the European Games, so it was a great chance for me to see how it would be representing GB at a multi-sport Games on the way to Paris.”

Attention now switches to the World Championships in Glasgow, which will be the first event at which all the different elements of cycling come together for a combined championships.

As well as a World title being on the line, a podium finish will guarantee a GB spot at the Olympics, and Reilly cannot wait to show off his skills in front of a home crowd.

“For people who have never really seen what we do before, you don’t really have to understand the sport in order to come and enjoy it,” he said. “It’s a good sport to watch, and whether people understand it or not, if you come and see people from GB doing what we do, then you’re likely going to get very excited about it.

“You might not really be able to see how things are going down, but I feel like at the very least, you can see the risk and appreciate that it’s a dangerous sport. You want your country’s riders to do the best they can do, and where it’s been set up, right in the middle of a field, is perfect for crowds. I think they’re expecting to have a good crowd, and that’s going to be great.”

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