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An Inside Look: Being a Girl in a Predominantly Boys’ Sport

By the time I was eight spending every weekend at the BMX Track had become normal. It was like a second home. BMX Racing was becoming a way of life for my family.

In all my time spent at the BMX Track there was one thing I had failed to notice. It was not until I started racing that I realized that the sport of BMX was dominated by boys.

As I got into the gate on the first day of my racing career I slowly looked around only to notice that everywhere I looked there were boys. As an awkward nine-year-old girl I was quickly intimidated by all the faces staring back at me. However, at that same moment I knew that just because I was one of only a few girls who were out on theĀ  BMX Track I was not going to let that stop me.

BMX racing along with some other sports including hockey, football, and wrestling are usually thought to consist of mainly boys. But, what’s life like for the girls who decide to participate in one of these sports?

At nine-years-old I approached my parents with the idea that I wanted to start racing BMX. It was not really an idea, but a statement. “Dad I want to race tomorrow,” I said. I was in the middle of a monopoly game with my brother and cousin and the idea dawned on me. “If my younger brother can race BMX than so can I,” I told myself.

July 9th, 2006 was the first time I raced and despite the fact that I lost to a 6-year-old girl on that day, it did not matter because BMX Racing was now a part of me.

After two years of racing for team “Mom and Dad” I was asked to join a local team called Stampede. When I first started racing Stampede consisted of 12 riders; 10 boys and 2 girls. One of those girls was me and the other was the six-year-old girl who had beat me in my first race.

Needless to say the number of girls in the Connecticut BMX circuit was limited. And if I thought six years ago there were not many girls in the sport, now the number is even less.

While my team has expanded to 24 total riders only four of these riders are girls. When I first began racing I used to be competing against at least four other girls each week and now I am lucky if there is even one.

Being a girl in a sport that is predominately male can be difficult at times. There’s the sweating and the spitting and the ignorant minds of the few boys who mistakenly still think boys are better than girls. There are also the boys who are afraid to get beat by girls and the boys who let the girls’ win so they don’t look bad.

Despite our differences however, every time I get off the track, no matter what place I get I know I’ll still have my teammates (girls and boys) there to congratulate me. And there’s nothing like having a bunch of guys to back you up and tell you what a great job you did. Sometimes they may push me around a bit and make jokes, but the tough love only makes me a better rider.

Through the wins, the losses, the cuts, the breaks, and the bruises I know that my team will be behind me one hundred percent. And six years ago as I looked around me I saw the unfamiliar faces of the boys who would eventually become like family to me.