BMX riding is not what comes to mind when we talk about school sports.
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Students at Moyston Primary School, however, have been excelling at it and were recently crowned champions at the BMX VICS Bendigo State Final Festival in Eaglehawk.
On October 19, 22 riders donned their helmets and gripped their handlebars to compete against other schools.
Several students also won their age classes – Aaliyah, Cody, Hannah, Wilson and Koby.
Principal Anthony Cain said he introduced the discipline to students when he joined the school in 2012.
It wasn’t long before he had organised a BMX track to be built.
“When I first came here, my son had been racing at Marian College and competing in the road events,” Mr Cain said.
“So then when I became principal out here I took a couple of students who were interested and since then it’s gained momentum.
“We’ve built a small BMX track out here at the school and we’ve got 25 bikes the school owns. We have our own competition jerseys with the student’s names on the back.”
Students began competing and haven’t stopped since.
“We've been school champions for five of those seven years,” Mr Cain said.
He added that the idea behind the sport was to encourage sustainable and healthy lifestyles.
“We run it as part of our physical education program in term three but the students ride their bikes or the school bikes at playtime and lunchtimes if they want to,” he said.
Older students also learned some basic bike maintenance.
“It’s building life skills up and teaching them to look after their own bicycles,” Mr Cain said.
However, Mr Cain said that while some students continue riding after they leave the primary school, plenty find it too difficult to continue on with due to a lack of facilities in the region.
“It’s probably one and half hours minimum to get to the nearest BMX track. That’s a significant amount of time if you’re going to take it up as a sport,” he said.
“If the facilities were close by, that would make it more accessible.
“(It’s about) a healthy life style and all that sort of thing.”