The profile of BMX racing has never been higher and Huddersfield teenager Elliot Brooke is a rising star in the sport.

Bethany Shriever made history this summer when she won Team GB’s first ever BMX gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and the sport caught the public’s imagination.

Now Elliot, 13, of Oakes, is making a name for himself and has just qualified for the 2022 BMX World Challenge Championships to be held in Nantes, France.

BMX racing has been an Olympic sport since 2008 and Elliot has grown up around the sport with his brother Oliver, 19, and sister Daisy, 17, also excelling.

Oliver left the sport when he was 15 and Daisy has previously competed in the World Championships though she’s now given up competitions to concentrate on an apprenticeship.

Mum Vicky and dad Jeremy are really proud of Elliot’s achievement and Vicky said: “He’s done really well and it’s great that he’s qualified.

“He is looking forward to going and competing and we are going to go and support him over there. Usually they do the competitions in Australia or America but because it’s in France we can afford to go.”

Elliot Brooke – a picture of concentration. Images courtesy: BMX Widow Photography

Elliot, a student at Salendine Nook High School, attends Preston Pirates BMX Club three times a week for training. Vicky praised both the club and school for how supportive they have been of Elliot. 

She said: “We moved to Preston Pirates at the beginning of this year and the club has been great with him. They have really worked with him and improved him. 

“His school has been great too. Sometimes we need to travel down on a Friday for competitions and so he’s had to miss lessons.

“However, the school has been great in helping us work out a way in which he doesn’t miss out on his education which is so important.”

All three siblings were inspired to get into cycling after watching the Rio Olympics in 2016. 

Vicky added: “One night we sat down as a family and watched the Olympics and Britain won all the cycling medals. All three of my kids said they wanted to try it as a sport.

“We got told that Elliot was too young to go on the velodrome track as you needed to be at least nine-years-old but he could go on the BMX one so that’s what he did. He just fell in love with it as did all the kids.

Daisy and Elliot

“We booked on to the BMX sessions and then we joined the Manchester club and got to know lots of other families which was nice.

“Oliver stopped when he was 15 and concentrated on other things. Daisy qualified for the European Championships in 2018 where she raced in the south of France. Then in 2019 she qualified for the World Championships when she was just 15. They raced in Belgium and she came 15th.

“We were over the moon with how she did. The competition was so hard because you had kids who had lots more resources than us and some of the countries that were competing were putting unbelievable amounts of money into their riders.

“She gave up mainly because of the pandemic but also because she has got into different things now and she’s concentrating on her apprenticeship in engineering.”

Daisy, Oliver and Elliot have all been successful in BMX racing

Vicky thought Elliot might have given up due to the pandemic too but after competing in a BMX race he found his love for the sport again. 

She said: “Elliot had done lots of mountain biking in the pandemic due to there not being any BMX races. We were on the verge of quitting BMX all together.

“He was really looking at competing in mountain biking but he did take part in a BMX race and said he’d missed it so he’s now concentrating on that again.”

READ MORE: Meet the Birchencliffe boxer who is compared to Ricky Hatton

Vicky believes Elliot can go as far as he wants in the sport and thinks he has a lot of talent. Elliot was also the North Region Club Champion this year.

So could the Olympics be on the radar in the future? “It would be great if he did get into the GB squad and went to an Olympics but we aren’t pushing for that,” said Vicky.

“We just want to keep him fit and active and let him learn that effort equals reward. Hopefully he’ll get to make tons of friends and have the most fun he can have.

“His ambition at home is to get on the podium for the national British BMX series, so he’s hoping to finish in the top three. He’d also like to get onto the British cycling development programme but that is a few years away yet.”

READ MORE: RL legend Henderson Gill, who grew up in Marsh and went to school in Oakes, can still ‘boogie.’