Queensland has never had a better chance to announce its next generation of BMX stars.

While Olympic champion Saya Sakakibara, four-time Olympian Lauren Reynolds and hometown hope Izaac Kennedy headline Australia’s medal hopes at this weekend’s UCI BMX World Championships in Brisbane, a wave of young Queenslanders are quietly emerging as the sport’s next big names.

Gold Coast siblings chasing rainbow jerseys together, a Maryborough rider who overcame a horrific facial injury and a junior world champion who relocated to Brisbane to fast-track his Olympic dream are among the title hopefuls.

The World championships are happening from July 17- 19 at the Brisbane SX International BMX Centre.

These are the Queensland and Australian prospects to watch as they bid to launch their international careers on home soil.

Ben and Bella Schramm

If New South Wales has siblings Kai and Saya Sakakibara, Queensland has a BMX brother-and-sister duo of its own in Bella and Ben Schramm.

The Gold Coast prospects have both been selected to represent Australia at this weekend’s UCI BMX World Championships.

Ashmore BMX Club product Bella Schramm will take centre stage at her first World Championships on her home track, lining up in the Under-23 women’s category.

Her younger brother, Ben, also earned a national call-up and will compete in the junior men’s division.

“My mum was so stoked, and my younger brother also got picked for the world team this year. He found out the day after, so it was a very exciting household,” Bella said.

The middle child of the Schramm family, Bella took up BMX as a six-year-old simply because she wanted to beat her brothers.

“I was just always so competitive with them that I wanted to do it as well as they did,” she said.

“I just never thought that my brothers could be better than me, so I always wanted to be better than them.”

That competitive streak has helped Bella become the reigning Australian Under-23 national champion and a back-to-back Oceania Under-23 champion in 2025 and 2026.

But the 21-year-old also knows the hardships of the sport. A serious injury in 2024 forced her away from racing and ultimately deepened her appreciation for BMX.

“I think stepping away made me realise how much I loved the sport and how much I loved even just training, not even competing, but just training,” she said.

Having ridden at the Sleeman Sports Complex track since childhood, Bella believes her familiarity with the venue gives her a significant advantage heading into the world championships.

Away from the track, she is balancing elite-level training with part-time Exercise Science studies at Griffith University, squeezing in university exams just days before the biggest race of her career.

While her long-term goal is the Olympic Games, Bella’s immediate focus is winning the coveted rainbow jersey on home soil.

“It would mean so much to win such a huge race and then also to do it at home in front of a home crowd,” she said.

Her rapid improvement has established her as one of Australia’s brightest emerging female BMX talents and part of the next generation targeting the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics and beyond.

For Ben, sharing the experience with his sister makes his World Championships debut even more special.

“I got off the call and I just had the biggest smile on my face. I was like, ‘Damn, no way this is actually happening.’

“Getting to do that on literally the biggest stage, like Kai and Saya, with my sister … it’s hard to take a step back and really look at it. It’s so cool.”

Ben committed fully to BMX after finishing high school, realising the sport was where his future lay.

“I think all the paths led to BMX. I was like, ‘Well, now’s the perfect time to give the sport my all.’”

He has gone from racing amateur events around the world to competing in the junior men’s category at the sport’s biggest event.

Izaac Kennedy 

For most riders, competing for an elite BMX world title is the pinnacle.

For one Queensland rider, he gets to chase the rainbow jersey just 20 minutes from where he grew up.

The 25-year-old will line up at the UCI BMX World Championships on the track he’s called home since childhood, describing the opportunity as “kind of like a dream come true”.

Having raced there since he was 11, the local favourite is hoping years of experience on the Brisbane circuit can deliver the biggest result of his career.

His path to a home World Championships has been shaped by both heartbreak and determination. A silver medal finish in Copenhagen last year still stings.

“I remember the feelings coming across and I was honestly pretty upset and pretty bummed,” he said.

Rather than dwell on the disappointment, he turned it into motivation.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more motivated for a race.”

That drive has underpinned months of meticulous preparation. Every training session, recovery routine and meal has been carefully managed as he chases the biggest prize in BMX.

“I just haven’t skipped anything when it comes to recovery, training, nutrition and sleep. I just try to tick every single box,” he said.

After putting injury setbacks behind him, he’s entering the championships in peak condition.

“My numbers and training have been going great.”

Far from feeling burdened by the expectation of racing at home, he believes the Brisbane crowd can become one of his biggest strengths.

“If you use the home crowd to your advantage, then you can do some pretty amazing things,” he said.

Even the withdrawal of the injured reigning world champion hasn’t distracted him from the task ahead.

“You don’t ever want to see the world champion go out. I would have rather gone out there and beat him.”

While a home Olympic Games in Brisbane in 2032 remains a major long-term goal, his focus is firmly fixed on this weekend and the chance to claim a world title on familiar ground.

“It’s probably going to be an opportunity that I don’t want to miss,” he said of Brisbane 2032.

For now, though, all eyes are on the local track where his BMX journey began.

“It’s going to be sick. I’m ready to go.”

Teya Rufus

Teya Rufus knows better than most just how confronting a serious facial injury can be for an 11-year-old.

Training on the dirt BMX track her father built in the backyard of the family home in Maryborough, Rufus suffered a horrific crash that left her with five broken facial bones, knocked-out front teeth and weeks confined to bed.

“When I was 11, I crashed in my backyard, knocked my front teeth out, broke my jaw on both sides and my nose. In total I broke five face bones,” Rufus said.

“As an 11-year-old, that’s pretty confronting. I was bedridden for a few weeks.”

Rufus admits it wasn’t until she returned to riding that the gravity of the accident truly sank in.

The ordeal is just one example of the resilience that has defined the 19-year-old’s rise through the sport.

Growing up in regional Queensland, Rufus and her family regularly travelled across the state for racing, making trips to Gladstone, Rockhampton and, for state championships, as far as Cairns and Townsville.

She also spent years making a gruelling four-hour round trip every Thursday, travelling from Maryborough to Brisbane after school to train at the Sleeman Sports Complex before arriving home in the early hours of Friday morning ahead of another school day.

Those sacrifices have paid off.

Now based in Brisbane, Rufus is preparing to race in the elite women’s division at this weekend’s UCI BMX World Championships.

It will be her second season competing in the elite ranks after claiming the 2024 AusCycling Superclass women’s national title and winning multiple Under-23 rounds on the UCI BMX Racing World Cup circuit.

Coached by Australian BMX great Sam Willoughby, Rufus has spent years training on Brisbane’s demanding world championship track.

While she stops short of calling it a home-track advantage, she believes her familiarity with the circuit provides an important mental edge.

“This is definitely a track where you really have to get it right,” she said.

“It’s really hard and a really small mistake can be very detrimental to your race.

“As much as I don’t really like to believe in home-track advantage, I definitely think I have one.”

Rufus will line up against Olympic champion Saya Sakakibara this weekend — the same rider she grew up idolising.

These days, however, the awe has disappeared.

The pair now regularly train together, with Rufus firmly believing she belongs among the world’s best.

Josh Jolly

Josh Jolly was working 40-hour weeks at a Ballarat bike shop while squeezing in BMX training before and after work, pushing through constant exhaustion in pursuit of his dream.

Winning the 2024 Junior Elite World Championship was the turning point in his career.

Now training at the Sleeman’s track ahead of the UCI BMX World Championships in Brisbane over the weekend, the 20-year-old BMX prodigy has called Brisbane his new home after moving with his family four months back.

The breakthrough victory was Jolly’s “clicking” moment to quit his full-time job and commit entirely to BMX, putting him on the road towards a potential berth at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

“When I won the 2024 Junior World Championships, that was the moment I realised I could make a living from this,” Jolly said.

“This can be my job. I quit my job after that, went all in on training and racing, and now I’m a full-time athlete. I don’t regret anything.”

Jolly first climbed onto a BMX bike at the age of two after watching his father, Wayne, compete in masters events, often tagging along to the track.

Growing up in Ballarat presented its own challenges.

The local tracks featured only small hills and jumps, forcing Jolly to regularly travel to Shepparton and Melbourne to develop the speed and technical skills needed to compete at the highest level.

Determined to test himself against stronger competition, Jolly and his father also made regular trips to the United States on 90-day ESTA visas to train and race.

His American journey began in 2023, competing in amateur events, where he joined a US team and met California-based coach Justin Wack.

Wack noticed Jolly was being coached solely by his father when he travelled to the United States in 2023 with Wayne for a three-month training stint.

After returning alone for a second trip, Jolly said he “met more and more people” and found his place in the BMX community, with the country now feeling “like a second home”.

The journey has not been without setbacks.

In 2021, Jolly crashed while training at the Shepparton track, breaking both wrists and spending more than eight weeks on the sidelines.

Competing in the under-23 division, Jolly believes racing on his home track and working alongside childhood idol-turned-coach Luke Madill has given him a significant physical and mental advantage.

“I’m pretty excited and pretty confident coming into the race,” he said.

“I won the last World Cup, so I’ll be racing the same guys again, and training on the home track gives me a lot of confidence.”

Zane Bourke

The Maitland Tenambit BMX Club product from New South Wales is 18 months into a carpentry apprenticeship but will put work on hold this week to make his junior elite debut at the UCI BMX World Championships.

For Zane, reaching the junior elite ranks is the reward for a lifetime spent on two wheels.

He first climbed onto a BMX bike as a three-year-old after his father took him and his older brother to their local track.

At first, his motivation was simple.

“I was always trying to chase him and beat my big brother,” he said.

Now, the teenager finds himself sharing the Australian team tent with the same riders he grew up idolising.

As a youngster, he looked up to Australian BMX stars Sam Willoughby and Isaac Kennedy.

Now, he is lining up on the gate alongside Kennedy himself.

“It’s 100 per cent surreal,” he said.

“You go out to practice and you’re looking around and seeing all these big riders. You’ve sort of got to forget about that side of it, come back to yourself and remind yourself that you’re here to race and represent Australia.”

Helping guide him through the transition has been long-time mentor Luke Madill.

Now AusCycling National BMX racing coach, has played a key role in Zane’s development, making his world championships debut a full-circle moment.

“It’s cool to have someone who raced at that high level now coaching me,” Zane said.

“He’s pointed me in the right direction over the years.”

Away from the track, Zane’s days are a far cry from the glamour of international competition.

The 18-month carpentry apprentice spends his days on the tools before heading straight to training, juggling the demands of full-time work with the pursuit of world championship success.

“It’s hard managing training with work,” he said.

“You go to work, come home tired and then you’ve still got to get to training.”