Charlotte's Profile

Worthington was working as a chef in her native Manchester when the Olympics admitted the sport of BMX freestyle park to the Tokyo Games, a decision that altered her life. Having swapped working in a Mexican restaurant for life as a professional rider, Worthington wasted no time in making history at the 2021 UCI Urban World Championships in Montpellier, France.

There, Worthington not only captured a bronze medal in her freestyle park event but also became the first woman to ever land a front flip in competition. The medal added to a successful debut year on the international stage in 2019 in which she had won gold in the inaugural UEC BMX Freestyle Park European Championships and a bronze in the UCI World Championships in China. Worthington also won the inaugural British National Championships in her discipline that year.

That form established Worthington as a medal hope for Tokyo as Great Britain’s representative in the new event introduced for the first time for the 2020 Games.

The announcement, in 2017, that freestyle BMX was to be added to the Olympic schedule, presented Worthington with an opportunity as she became a member of the fledgling Great Britain Cycling Team programme.

Worthington only discovered the sport in her late teens, having previously learned to perform tricks on a scooter, and was nearly 20 before she seriously began to ride BMX. But, within three years, she had been crowned the first ever freestyle park European champion and become the first British woman ever to medal at the world level in Chengdu.

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