Athlete Profile
Hannah Roberts: Leads Women’s BMX Park Debut
By Nicole Dreon
©Rob Darden
Roberts Leads Women’s BMX Park Debut At X Games Ventura
Buchanan, Michigan, seems an unlikely place to produce a five-time BMX Park world champion and Olympic medalist. But that’s where Hannah Roberts grew into a star. The youngest of four sisters, Hannah, now 22, was inspired by her cousin Brett Banasiewicz, one of the top BMX riders at the time.
Hannah didn’t just like BMX, she was obsessed -- and the entire family was invested in her love of the sport. Hannah’s older sister Danielle often would drop her off at the park and her grandfather would pick her up. It was truly a family affair.
Hannah remembers being 13 and lying in bed wide awake at 2 a.m. She recently had tried a backflip but crashed hard, and it was eating at her. “I was in bed with my phone, and I was watching videos of me doing backflips into the foam pit when my dad texted to say he’d be home soon,” Hannah recalls. Her father, Richard, worked nights as a railroad engineer. “I was like, ‘Dude, we have to go to the skate park right now! Today’s the day!”
Cousin Banasiewicz owned the local riding facility, and the Roberts family had a set of keys. Richard picked Hannah up after his shift and the pair hit the park before 3 a.m. Soon after flipping on the lights, Hannah tried the backflip again. This time, she stuck it. Then she did it again, and again, and again. At 4 a.m., they packed up and headed home. Hannah got ready for school and Richard went to bed.
When Hannah competed at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, her mom, Betty, a nurse, arranged a watch party in Buchanan, pop. 4,200. More than 2,000 people attended, and they saw Hannah earn silver. The town has since declared Aug. 10th “Hannah Roberts Day” and unveiled a mural in her honor downtown.
Moving Beyond The Comfort Zone
Like all good stories, the protagonist must leave their comfort zone to grow. Hannah graduated from Buchanan High School in 2019 (where she was a National Honors Society member!) and promptly uprooted to Holly Springs, North Carolina, to train at multi-time XG gold medalist Daniel Dhers’ world-class riding facility.
The pandemic hit soon after her move, and she didn’t see her family for more than a year. It was a huge adjustment for someone with such close family ties. But she was making it on her own as a pro, even buying a house in Jacksonville, North Carolina, in late 2020. In 2021, at age 19, she married Kelsey Miller and hoped to recreate the warm homelife she left behind in Buchanan. It didn’t work out, and they divorced the following year. “It's been a huge learning curve, obviously, with a marriage and divorce,” Hannah says.
Steadfast throughout the highs and lows has been her U.S. team coach, 16-time X Games medalist Ryan Nyquist. Hannah drives an hour from Jacksonville every weekday morning to train at Ryan’s house in Wilmington, North Carolina. “Ryan has energy like no one else I’ve ever met in my life,” Hannah says with a laugh, adding that she’s close with the entire Nyquist family. “I see Ryan basically every single day. He’s my nine-to-five except I try to take the weekends off and spend it with my dogs and my girlfriend and go to the beach and just live a little.”
Training daily with one of the best BMX riders on the planet has greatly improved Hannah’s riding. “Ryan knows exactly what he can say to make me do a trick,” says Hannah, stressing that they keep it fun. “Before I drop in, he’ll be like, ‘Listen, if you don’t do it next go you owe me $7.53, and I want it all in pennies.’ One time it was $9.99 but in a cashier’s check. It’s inconvenient. It’s never like a $10 cash app. Every time he says that I’m like, ‘Dang it. Now, I have to throw it.’”
The Benefits of Camaraderie
Women’s BMX Park makes its X Games debut as a medal event at XG Ventura 2024. Hannah participated in a women’s demo at X Games Austin 2016 when she was just 14, but she mostly remembers how excited her dad was to see BMX Dirt…and Blink-182. Roberts is stoked for the new opportunity.
“I think X Games has always had that power to inspire the next generation,” she says. “What I’m most hopeful for is that 6-, 7-, 8-year-old girls will be like, ‘Oh, yeah, that's sick!’ and jump on bikes and fall in love with the sport and be that next generation.”
Hannah also is fired up to compete alongside some of her best friends. “I absolutely love the camaraderie,” she says of the women’s Park scene. Her best friend is Australia’s Natalya Diehm, whom she met in Hiroshima, Japan, in 2019, and who also is scheduled to compete at X Games.
“I said hello and asked her for a photo because I watched her when I was young,” Hannah says. “And the next month, we met up again in France for another competition. I think we talked for like 12 hours, and it was just one of those moments where I went, ‘We're best friends now.’”
Roberts also leans heavily on American teammate Perris Benegas. “Perris has been a really big crutch for me, especially when things get super stressful,” Hannah says. “I know she feels that, too, so we’ll just sit and FaceTime for hours talking about life and all that.”
They’re fierce competitors but hardly rivals. “The people I compete against are the coolest because they’re the ones who motivate me to continue and to keep pushing and to keep striving to get better,” Hannah says. “That’s what I love the most. That’s what makes BMX so special to me.”