David Herman knows what you’re thinking. Like the Wheat Ridge High School graduate, a lot of BMX riders do. They don’t blame you for it, but that doesn’t mean they like it. Would you like to be called X Gamers when you’re really Olympians? When you’re marching in the opening ceremonies in Beijing Aug. 8 and riding for your country?
BMX riders will do just that this year — for the first time. It’s one of three new Olympic medal events (the others are open-water swimming and women’s steeplechase) and Herman, 20, has a shot at being one of the first-time American Olympians in BMX.
One race at the BMX training center in Chula Vista, Calif., on Saturday will determine one of three Olympic spots. If Herman, considered a reasonable darkhorse, wins and makes the team, he will reach a pinnacle no one thought possible in a sport limited to obscure dirt parks until its Olympic approval five years ago.
He’s no X Gamer, some of whom have said they’d rather win an X Games gold medal than Olympic gold.
“Especially this Olympic year, we train so hard I think we’d be considered more like an Olympic athlete because we dedicate so much more,” said Herman from Chula Vista on Wednesday. “We give up a lot in our lifestyle to pursue the Olympics. I don’t see X Games athletes doing that.”
And a note to purists who view BMX as X Gamers intruding on sacred Olympic turf: BMX is not even in the X Games. Well, it is in the form of vert and dirt jumps, and other skills heavy on style with no finish lines.
Olympics BMX is racing. If you’ve never seen it, picture motocross without a motor. Up to eight riders stand atop a dirt hill above a 350-meter track. When the gate drops, they drop. Frantically pedaling a lightweight one-gear bike that looks oddly similar to the first one you rode as a kid, they hit speeds of up to 30 mph and jump 40-foot gaps when not tearing around hairpin turns.
The race only lasts about 40 seconds but the stress, to the nerves and psyche, makes it seem like 40 minutes.
“A BMX athlete is more of an all-around type athlete,” said Kim Hayashi, 22, of Chandler, Ariz., the fourth-ranked American female rider. “You also have to have the mental capabilities to have the guts to jump. You get so high in the air it’s scary.”
Herman, who’s 5-foot-8, 145 pounds, goes to the track five times a week to train and he races every Saturday. He lifts leg weights three times a week, two hours a day.
“It’s like being a fast sprinter or a running back,” Herman said.
BMX riders are daredevils but not the free spirits you find in X Games. Kyle Bennett, who has piled up so many points he already has an Olympic spot and won’t race Saturday, sports a big BMX tattoo on his arm. That’s about as crazy as they get.
“We’re pretty much a rare breed,” said Donnie Robinson, second to Bennett’s 174 points with 157. “I think a lot of people associate BMX with wild childs and kids who have to go their own way. But I think BMX racing athletes are kind of an anomaly in this scene. All our lives are spent training and focused on what our ultimate goals are.”
Herman has had that focus a long time. When he was 7, his older brother took him to Sky High BMX, a track in Arvada. He wanted David to race motorcycles, and BMX was a good training ground. Turns out, it was the start of an Olympic pursuit.
“BMX became my passion,” he said. “For one, I was scared of motorycles. Two, I was naturally good on the bicycles.”
He still lives at home in Wheat Ridge, but has carved out a good living and should jump an income-tax level if he makes the Olympics. He won American Bike Association amateur titles in 2005 and ’06, but his win in Adelaide, Australia, April 12 made him only the second American to win a World Cup race this year.
The victory qualified him for Saturday’s race. He’ll have to win to make the team. The third spot will be a coaching staff’s decision, and Robinson is the likely candidate if he doesn’t win.
The course is daunting. A perfect replica of the course in Beijing, it starts with more than a 25-foot hill straight down with a 45-foot jump on the second straightaway.
“I do feel quite a bit of pressure,” he said. “Of all eight of us, honestly, just about anybody can win. A lot think that, too. I feel like I could make the Olympic team.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
