The new snowboarding?

ALLAN MAKI

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

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August 18, 2008 at 9:47 PM EST

BEIJING —

Forget about the time she fell as a 10-year-old and detached her lip and broke her jaw crashing face-first off a bike.
That was then (when she wasn't wearing a faceguard) and this is the Olympics, said 22-year-old Samantha Cools of Airdrie, Alta., who wants everyone to know BMX racing is not as dangerous as it seems.
Sure, eight cyclists race down a hill, over dale, through the air and to the finish line in roughly 40 seconds. But it is fun, and once people see it, they may enjoy it the way Winter Olympic fans warmed to snowboard cross in Turin.
"Its a big scene," said Cools, who described the BMX racing crowd as an extended family that rocks to the apt announcing of a man known as Red Bone.
"He's an American and wears tattoos," Cools said. Exactly.
BMX racers compete with fans cheering, music blaring and the ever-present risk of a collision. To get the best lanes for the final, racers are seeded by their showings in the time trials.
"I don't do well in the time trials," Cools admitted. "I'm not a rider, I'm a racer. I do better with seven other girls on the track than by myself."
As for health, she's about 90 per cent recovered from a neck injury incurred while visiting a chiropractor this year. Despite the stiff neck, she was fifth at the 2008 world championship and eager to show the world what an exhilarating sport BMX is at this level.
"I hope people aren't turned away," she said. "That's what I'm afraid of. [Parents might say], 'Jimmy, you're not going into BMX.' At the grassroots level, BMX is on a lot lower scale."
Her racing is at the highest level and, yes, she wears a helmet. With a faceguard, of course.

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