A lads' holiday in Zante was enough to tip Jude Jones over the edge and back towards the Olympic dream, writes Sportsbeat's Tom Harle.
“I was in a bar and remember just looking around at people who were my age and thinking, ‘I used to do something that was pretty cool,’” said the BMX cyclist.
“I used to do all these tricks and things. I felt like I’d wasted it and all of a sudden, I was just like everyone else. There was nothing that set me apart from everyone else.”
A 21-year-old now described as having a ‘style and trick bag like no other BMX rider’ was then working as a bricklayer near home in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.
“It was a good job, there were good times but it was never what I wanted to do forever,” says Jones. “I had this dream of being a BMX rider and I knew deep down, I knew I could do it.
One step closer to Paris 👏
— Team GB (@TeamGB) May 18, 2024
Kieran Reilly and Jude Jones finish third and fourth in the first #OlympicQualifierSeries Freestyle final 🚲
🇬🇧 Reilly 89.28
🇬🇧 Jones 88.56#Shanghai2024 pic.twitter.com/ZjQJyjhOQi
“It hit me, it was like, ‘you need to go home and get back on the bike.’”
Still in need of income, Jones would head straight to the skate park after full days on the building site. In 2022, he left work on the Friday and was crowned British champion by the time the weekend was out.
Now he is on the road to Paris 2024 and among the 1,000-strong cohort of elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing him to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support.
This is all that Jones dreamt of from the age of four when his dad first took him to go over the jumps at Chicksands Mountain Bike Park.
“It was a bit of babysitting at first but I loved it,” said Jones. “I used to do these little jumps and he’d catch me. I loved the thrill of risking it.”
Jones was given his first wethepeople BMX for his eighth birthday and rode it until the wheels fell off.
Mainstream education didn’t work for Jones, for whom creating new tricks, flips and routines soon became his sole outlet for creativity.
“BMX was my way of expressing myself,” he said. “I didn’t need a teacher to tell me to learn something, I went to the skate park and that was how I was going to better myself. My identity is through BMX and it always has been.”
“If I'm there, there's no chance I'm not winning that. I've got to."
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) June 18, 2023
Britain’s Jude Jones is targeting Paris 2024 gold after taking BMX Freestyle Park victory at #MadridUrbanSports 2023.@urbanworldserie | @TeamGB
Jones’ passion and vivid imagination has turned him into one of a kind.
At the Olympics he hopes to be flying the flag for ‘goofy’ riders, who defy convention by leading with their right foot instead of their left. It is a cultural divide in the sport and means Jones’ routines look radically different from his rivals.
“I like to do things my way,” said Jones. “The stance disrupts everything in your riding and I like to use it to my advantage. I’ve always been different from everyone else.
“There were times when I tried to fit in a bit more and ride like everyone else but I couldn’t do that. I’ve got this different way of riding, I’ve got to own it. If it wasn’t for being goofy, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
National Lottery players raise more than £30million a week for good causes including vital funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. Find out how your numbers make amazing happen at: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk #TNLAthletes #MakeAmazingHappen
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here