Motocross In The Olympics

[Xena Donovan]

NOCNSF has decided that motocross will be treated as an Olympic sport in the Netherlands from 2025. This increased status is the result of an application by the KNMV and is valid for four years (an Olympic cycle).

Motocross may not be an Olympic sport, but no one can ignore the level in the Netherlands. In practice, the new status means greater appreciation for this branch of motorsport and that the available grants for motocross will be increased. This allows the KNMV to start high-quality programs for top riders, in addition to the existing programs for young talent. All grants entirely benefit the sport.

The NOC*NSF assessment is based on a request from the KNMV in which data, insights and figures have been collected in various areas regarding motocross. Wim Mulder, director of the KNMV, sees the decision as a real breakthrough for motorsport:

The Motocross des Nations (in French) is an annual team motocross race, where riders representing their country meet at what is billed as the "Olympics of Motocross". The event has been staged since 1947, where the team of Bill Nicholson, Fred Rist and Bob Ray, representing Great Britain, took home the Chamberlain Trophy for the first time.[1][2]

The event as it stands today is an amalgamation of three separate events, the original Motocross des Nations, raced with 500cc motorcycles, the Trophe des Nations, raced with 250cc motorcycles, and the Coupe des Nations, for 125cc motorcycles. Before 1984, the three events were held in different locations on different weekends, whereafter they were combined into a single event with one rider per class.

The scoring for the event works on the position system, i.e. first place is awarded one point, second place two, etc. Each class (currently MXGP, MX2 and Open) races twice, each time against one of other two classes, for a total of three races. The worst score of three races is dropped, and the lowest combined score wins.

The event's name has been officially anglicised (as Motocross of Nations "MXON") since 2004, when Youthstream was awarded promotional rights for the World Motocross Grand Prix, although the general moniker Des Nations or MXDN is still very much in use. Races are streamed live on the MXGP website.

A cold, consistent drizzle and sporadic showers subdued the Sunday crowd, mud was unavoidable and seating was almost non-existent outside of a muddy port-a-potty and one set of muddy bleachers, but motocross fans are a hardy bunch who braved the weather with a sea of umbrellas and ponchos.

Most vendors were cash only due to almost no one having cell service or internet, which was a major inconvenience for attendees and media. Those who brought cash could enjoy the carnival-style food along with some local food trucks. The smell of barbecue smoked ribs and funnel cake paired nicely with high octane exhaust fumes.

In the paddock, or pit area, large well-funded teams like USA, Italy, Belgium, etc., were filled with multimillion-dollar tour bus-style rigs loaded with bikes and employees while the pits of smaller teams such as Israel and Morocco resembled a group of friends hanging out.

The start of the first race was met with a deafening combination of 40 motorcycles and thousands of roaring fans equipped with flags, smoke bombs, cow bells, airhorns, chainsaws and any other noisemaker you could imagine.

The podium teams put in impressive rides with each earning an individual moto win, notably American Eli Tomac, who put on a dominating performance in the first moto with an early lead that took him all the way to the checkered flag. In moto two the 19 year old Australian phenom Jett Lawrence appeared to be right at home and having fun in his first race on the full sized 450cc motorcycle after two championship winning seasons on a 250cc. Frenchman Maxime Renaux was an unknown but formidable opponent to Sexton and Lawrence, who attacked Renaux unsuccessfully for the last 10 minutes of Moto 3. Other honorable mentions include the defending Italian champions Antonio Cairoli, Andrea Adamo and Mattia Guadagnini, who came just shy of a podium position.

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I love all motorsports and I love team sports as well, but motocross is a cut above. I'm convinced that it is the most challenging sport on the planet, and it comes with dire consequences when you fail. It's a motorsport, but it's much more about the rider than the motor. It requires incredible skill. It's almost always necessary to start the sport just after you begin walking, and you have to ride several times a week for about 15 years to get good enough to ride at a professional level.

Physically demanding

Studies consistently rank motocross among the most physically demanding sports in the world. During a typical race day, a pro motocrosser wrestles with a 200-plus-pound bike for 30 or more minutes in each of two motos. Take my word for it, you cannot let up for even an instant. It requires both phenomenal aerobic and anaerobic fitness as well as incredible mental focus. You are holding on and bracing yourself under braking, when you accelerate (motocross bikes have the highest power-to-weight ratio of any production vehicle) and throughout every moment in between. Motocross bikes often seem to have a mind of their own and they are constantly trying to get away from you. Add to these demands the constant, unforgiving impacts of landing off large jumps. Even with modern suspension you definitely feel it when you fall out of the sky from heights equivalent to a four-story building.

Man over machine

Motocross is more about the rider than the machine. I love the spectacle of Formula 1 racing, drag racing or even NASCAR, but in all of these sports the guy with the best vehicle tends to win. This is not the case in motocross. Of course all of the top riders have very well-prepared bikes, but there's little about them that you can't buy yourself, and if all of the top riders swapped bikes the same guy would still win. If you're good enough, you can pop into your local bike dealer, buy a bike and then go out and win a national championship.

This makes motocross an everyman motor sport. It certainly helps if you have a little spare cash, because motocross is not cheap. But you don't need $100,000 to race at even the highest levels. Depending on what age group you are talking about (big bikes cost more than little ones), you can get your kid into motocross for between $2,000 and $5,000. I recommend that you do.

Each weekend we all drag our trailers out to one of the tracks on Vancouver Island and camp for the weekend. The kids run amok in various packs while the parents sit around the campfire, drinking beer and eating Cheezies. It's just like regular camping but better, because there's something really fun to do during the day.

Research has provided some insight on the physiology of an MX athlete. Physiological measures have indicated that even recreational MX riders have greater aerobic capacity and vertical jump height than population norms (Burr, Jamnik, & Gledhill, 2010). When compared to physically active men, MX athletes produce greater anaerobic power, aerobic peak power, and have greater muscular endurance (Bach, Kinsey, & Ormsebee, 2015). Given that racers compete at near maximal heart rates (>90% HRmax) and high VO2, it is expected that MX athletes have significant cardiac adaptations. Indeed, a study by Nagy, Vari, and Balogh (2015) found that A-level (semi-professional) Hungarian MX athletes had the same cardiac adaptations as professional or Olympic athletes. Also, Anthropometric measures have indicated that MX athletes typically have less body fat than physically active men (Bach et al., 2015).

There are two oft reported studies which have directly compared motocross riders to other athletes, one in 1979 by the National National Athletic Institute and another in 2002 by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's (UMPC) Sports Performance Complex.

The 2022 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations signified the second time in five years that RedBud served as the host site. A cornerstone venue of American motocross with a history that spans nearly five decades under the guidance of the multi-generational Ritchie family, RedBud has long been a standard bearer for how to showcase the sport on its highest scale and has quickly established itself as a go-to stateside destination for this annual global spectacle.

Am I the only person that finds it a bit absurd that pingpong, shooting, BMX, curling and horse riding are in the olympics but not Motocross? I do crew, and that is generally considered one of the harder sports and I am still beat after a day of riding. Its definatly harder than ping pong or curling could ever dream of being. And horse riding really gets at me, its alot like dirtbike riding. The horse is a tool that the rider controlls to do jumps, race and stuff like that, just like a bike but instead of gas it eats hay.

Have you also noticed than none of these Olympic sports feature motorized vehicles? Hmm, I wonder why they wouldnt allow a bunch of guys riding dirtbikes to compete. We could even have Olympic NASCAR racing!

Its more that I had to say something, I got in an argument with one of those horse riding people that thinks that its harder to go for a ride on horse than dirt bike. They brought up that horse riding is in the olympics

but not MX. With the amount of specalized equpment and how the horse does all the actual "work" (in the scientific meaning) it seams dirt bikes are just as much of a sport. Its anoying that people think that riding is like driving a car and your just along for the ride not actualy doing anything physical. This is a pointless thread and I should just stop now.

Honestly, forget the olympics. The olympics are there to try to legitimize fake sports that no one would care about otherwise, like figure skating and curling mens beach volleyball. Real sports are better off as far away from something like that as they can get.

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