Meet BMX freestyle star Kieran Reilly, YouTube sensation with ‘lucky mullet’ who took silver at Olympics 2024
Kieran Reilly is the Freestyle BMX world and European champion.
He has added an Olympic medal to his collection, taking silver at Paris 2024.
Who is Kieran Reilly?
Kieran Reilly is a British professional cyclist who was born on July 12, 2001.
When he was nine he convinced his parents to buy him his first BMX and started practicing tricks at his local skatepark.
Kieran explained: “Right outside my front door was a football field and then a small skatepark.
“When I was a kid it was all about riding around on your bike, that’s all we did. You’d ride to your friend’s house, knock on his door and see if he was in.
“Then we started seeing all these older kids doing tricks in the skatepark, so the bikes for Christmas turned into BMXs and I just fell in love with it straight away.”
He came to prominence making YouTube videos showcasing his incredible talent.
Since then he has come to the forefront of BMX stunt riding — winning gold at the European Championships in 2022, before becoming a world champion in 2023.
In 2022, he made history by becoming the first person to land a ‘triple flair’ — three backflips combined with a 180° turn.
Speaking in the run up to the Paris Games, Kieran said: “Last year was a stellar year. I couldn’t really have asked for anything more.
“I didn’t expect to be going into the Games as a favourite. If I was going to be going at all, I was expecting to be going in as an underdog. To be going in as world champ is quite a mental feeling.
“It gives me so much confidence though because it shows that the work I’m putting in is the right thing.
“It shows what I’m capable of, and it’s just switched my mindset from ‘I want to be an Olympian’ to ‘I want to win gold at the Olympics‘.”
Kieran has the same sports psychologist as Andy Murray, as well as a ‘lucky mullet’.
He said of his haircut: “I went to a different barber and he gave me a taper with no fade, he pretty much gave me a mullet by accident.
“I got some stick from the team for the whole week but then I won the Euros, so I thought I would keep it out of spite.
“The next big event was the Worlds and I won with the mullet. I was thinking this is my good luck charm now, so I said I’m keeping it through until Paris.”
What sport does Kieran Reilly compete in?
Kieran competes in BMX Freestyle.
Freestyle BMX is like motocross stunt riding, but on BMX bikes.
It is an extreme sport descended from BMX racing, consisting of five disciplines: street, park, vert, trails, and flatland.
Freestyle was added to the Olympic programme for Tokyo 2020 and immediately captured the sporting public’s imagination, with many people describing it as Gymnastics on a Bike.
Kieran is at forefront of the sport and is making his Olympic debut at Paris 2024, where he has a very good chance of winning a medal.
What is Kieran Reilly’s Olympic track record?
Paris 2024 is Kieran’s very first Olympics.
But he showed no first-time nerves, winning the silver medal in the Freestyle BMX event on Wednesday, July 31.
Hopefully — for fans of Team GB at least — there will be many more to come from the 21-year-old.