One of the biggest lessons I learnt this year was never to completely write a sport off as boring or irrelevant until you’ve seen it live.
With 2012 being an Olympic year, it was a chance to test my theories about a few sports I’d never really warmed to, or more accurately, never really understood why they were considered worthy of a spot at the games.
The organisers in London chose to put the BMX track next to the velodrome in the Olympic park.
Sitting right next to the pringle shaped roof, under which Anna Meares, Victoria Pendleton and Sir Chris Hoy would create traditional Olympic moments, was a hilly track about the size of a football field.
It looked more X-Games than IOC with tunnels, jumps and an eye-catching bright orange and blue colour scheme.
During the Beijing games, where the sport was introduced for the first time, I was dead against BMX featuring on the Olympic schedule.
It just didn’t seem to fit. BMXs were things you rode in the street with your mates when you still had someone telling you to go to bed.
This was the Olympics. The ultimate in sporting endeavour, drug cheats aside, and was the domain of athletics, swimming and cycling.
But in London, you were lucky if you got a seat in the huge grandstands.
David Beckham and British Prime Minister David Cameron were there and a large Australian contingent had settled in to see Sam Willoughby and Caroline Buchanan.
The atmosphere was infectious and you quickly realised why the IOC had added the sport to the program.
Not only were the short races perfect for television, but the crowd was captivated by the action.
Willoughby would win silver, but it wasn’t until Buchanan missed out on a medal after being a near certainty for a top two finish did it hit home how much it meant to these riders and that they were indeed athletes.
At the end of the track, Buchanan sat slumped over her handlebars, dealing with the crushing realisation that her Olympic dream was over.
A gold medal would’ve meant as much to her as home town darlings Jessica Ennis or Mo Farah.
This week, officials from seven sporting bodies met with decision makers from the IOC.
At stake is a place in the 2020 summer Olympics in either Tokyo, Madrid or Istanbul.
The baseball and softball confederations, presenting as a united front, karate, roller sports, squash, sport climbing, wakeboard and wushu (apparently a full contact martial art) are all competing for one spot in 2020.
Roller sports will take on the form of roller skating around an indoor track over distances ranging from 300m to 15km.
Bouldering, according to a leading climbing website (yes, these actually exist), is one of three disciplines submitted by the sport. Bouldering is rope-less climbing on small cliffs.
Your first thought is to dismiss the non-traditional sports as Olympic contenders, but after witnessing BMX racing live, I’m now loath to chuck anything in the ridiculous basket.
A final decision on the successful applicant, along with the naming of the host city, won’t be made until September next year.
Roller sports or sport climbing couldn’t make the cut… could they?
The success of BMX shows just about anything is possible.
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