What is the National Championships? You might have seen it in previous years and wondered what it was. It’s not the British Championships, that’s a completely separate event where racers qualify through regional races.
The National Championships is run each year and the winners get to wear a Union Flag sleeve for the next twelve months. It’s a UCI (International Cycling Union) requirement and is run under a separate format. Traditionally, categories have been restricted to Championship categories (Elite Open/Championship Women, Under-23 and Junior Open and Female).
This year, British Cycling with the BMX Race Commission and National Series Working Group have decided to turn this into the prestigious event it really should be – as a standalone event on Friday evening after practice for the Birmingham National weekend – with more riders from even more age groups able to compete for the title of National Champion.
Racing will follow the same format as World Cup and UEC events – a single moto, a ‘last chance qualifier’ and knockout rounds through to the A final – in each category.
Each category will see separate races for Open and Female competitors, by invitation only to the top 30 racers (15 from each age group where combined) in the national rankings prior to the event.
2024 National Championships categories – from 7pm, Friday 5 July, Birmingham
13-14 ‘Juvenile’
15-16 ‘Youth’
17-18 ‘Junior’
Under 23
Senior
Masters 30+
This is great news for the sport – it’s free to enter, so there’s no excuse! There’s more planned for future years, but for 2024 please get behind this event, come along and cheer on the superstars of today and tomorrow!
hi how’s it going guys I’m Andy McCoy I’m here at Birmingham BMX club and I’ve got some pretty fantastic news as some of you may be aware BMX does actually have a national champs now not talk about the Brits that’s a completely different event the national champs is actually a a UCI event that happens once a year usually around July it’s a One laap race and basically it’s only up until now been available for elite Riders so over the years a lot of you have kind of brought this up and said what is the national champ it’s a bit of an anticlimax why isn’t it something bigger and better you know it doesn’t really fit the sport well I’m glad to say BC have actually been listening so British cycling along with the national series work group and the BMX commission have got something pretty exciting to announce we’re going to be bringing you what could be the start of a proper national championships it’s going to be a different format to what you used to more of a World Cup format with Last Chance qualifiers we’re going to expand the categories to more Riders but more about that in a minute but more importantly this is the start of your chance for your Riders to get that opportunity to go after that coveted national champs Jersey more about those categ what do they actually look like well essentially there’s six new categories 13 to 14s 15 to 16s and 30 plus Masters now they are going to be merged categories so the 13 to 14s will be merged a groups same with the 15 to 16s and that’s part of the that’s what’s going to be different about the national championships they are going to be bigger categories so there is going to be more Kudos and more Prestige involved but what it means is it means your Riders can go after that national champs Jersey and have the absolute honor of being the British cycling National Champion so I’m sure you agree this is exactly the dire the sport needs to going exactly how we should be driving things forward it’s absolutely fantastic news and exactly what we want to see but what we really need now is the BMX family to get right behind this and support this we need to prove the concept and show British cycling this is absolutely something that the BMX Community wants and the BMX Community deserves we want to make Heroes we want to see people wearing those National jerseys Union Jacks on their sleeves wearing those national colors with pride and having something really prestigious in the sport to go after and there’s definitely room for those two Flagship events we’ve got the British championships and we’ve got the national championships so I’m going to be here on Friday the 5th of July Birmingham BMX Club checking that out come down have some food the food be food here drinks here and next watch some racing come support us
1 Comment
This is awesome!! Just what BMX needs