Logan Martin

When Tokyo gold medallist Logan Martin first tried BMX Freestyle as a 12-year-old, his dad came up with a novel solution to break his fall when his tricks didn’t quite come off.

Logan and his dad trawled the streets of Brisbane looking for old mattresses to bring to the skate park in suburban Crestmead to provide a bit of padding.

“Dad brought down three mattresses and a wheelbarrow, which he used to move some sand from the nearby sandpit over to the ramp to help soften the landing even more,” Logan said.

“The only problem was, a few days later the council would take the mattresses away while we were at school – so Dad would have to do it all again.”

A decade later, Logan came up with his own unique solution to a problem standing in the way of his BMX career. He built his own skate park in the backyard of his home in the Gold Coast hinterland so he could train during the COVID lockdown.

It was an indication of the intense drive and determination to be the best that ensured Logan quickly excelled at the sport.

He travelled overseas for the first time in 2012 and won his first international competition that year. His continued success throughout 2013, both domestically and internationally, helped launch Logan’s BMX career.

He went on to win the International Festival of Extreme Sports in 2015 and 2016, and in 2016 he debuted at his first X-Games in Austin where he won silver. This result made him the first rookie to win a BMX park medal in eight years.  

In 2017, Logan won the inaugural BMX Freestyle world title at the UCI Urban World Championships in China and in 2019 he won dual X-Games gold, the 2019 Urban Games gold and World Championship silver.

Outside the skate park, Logan and his wife Kimberley also welcomed their first child, Noah Alexander, in 2019.

With the 2020 season cancelled due to the COVID pandemic, Logan returned to Australia to continue preparing for the Tokyo Olympics at the newly-constructed BMX Freestyle Indoor Training Facility on the Gold Coast.

An impressive return to competition saw him win the 2020 and 2021 National Championships. He then went on to win the 2021 UCI World Championships held in France, with an impressive score of 94.90.

Logan made history at Tokyo 2020 by winning the first ever men’s Olympic gold medal in freestyle BMX.

The Queenslander dominated the park final without needing to produce his full repertoire of tricks. He clinched the gold medal with just his first 60-second run when he was awarded a score of 93.3, which none of his competitors were able to match in either of their two runs.

Logan was already a two-time BMX Freestyle world champion going into the Tokyo Games and handled the favourite’s tag with ease by qualifying top in the seeding rounds and then starring in the gold medal final.

BMX Freestyle was a huge hit in its first appearance at the Olympics, with 2.07 million Australians tuning in to watch Logan deliver gold.

Hollywood star Nicole Kidman, star of the film BMX Bandits, put on a t-shirt from the film and took to social media to congratulate Logan.

“Congratulations from this BMX Bandit to Logan Martin for winning the first ever Olympic gold medal for freestyle BMX,” Kidman wrote on Instagram.

Although the X Games is an important part of the international BMX circuit – Logan is a five-time X Games gold medallist – the Olympics have become a new focal point and he is determined to defend his crown at the Paris Games.

“I’m still riding at the highest level,” he said. “My body is still good. My mind is still good. I believe I can do it again and I’ll do my best to back up the Tokyo performance.”

In fact, having won gold in front of almost empty grandstands in Tokyo, he is exciting about performing for packed houses in Paris.

“Being there with some packed grandstands is going to create a pretty epic environment and I can’t wait to fell that sort of rush that you’re going to get riding at the Olympics in front of a packed crowd,” he said.