Declan's Profile

A founder member of the Great Britain Cycling Team BMX freestyle park programme when it was inaugurated in 2018, Brooks will represent his country at Tokyo 2020 when the discipline is included in the Olympic Games for the first time.

The Portsmouth-based athlete, a competitive BMX rider for 15 years, quickly marked himself out as a potential medallist when he took to the international stage in 2019.

The start to his time with the GB team had been disrupted by a double leg break which sidelined him for six months but Brooks began to make a name for himself in his first full season of competition at the elite level.

In October he collected a bronze medal at the UEC BMX Freestyle Park European Championships in Switzerland and followed that with a second place at the UCI BMX Freestyle Park World Cup in Chengdu, China. That was enough to clinch Brooks an eight-place overall finish in the World Cup standings for that season and he also ended the year with a strong tenth-place showing at the UCI World Championships, also in Chengdu.

As with most sports, the BMX schedule suffered during the Covid-19 restrictions of 2020 although Brooks’ bid for a World Championship medal in Montpellier, France, in June 2021 came to a premature end when he was knocked unconscious while attempting a double back flip in his final ride, although he suffered no lasting ill effects and finished ninth.

Brooks’ father had instilled in him a love of riding on two wheels - on motorbikes, motocross and BMX - and the versatile rider might have pursued another career before his opportunity arose as an Olympian.

His c.v. before joining the British Cycling Team includes stints riding with the BMX act at the world-renowned Cirque du Soleil, as well as working as a stunt performer on films and adverts.

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