Charlotte Worthington makes Olympic history
In a first for the Olympics, Britain’s Charlotte Worthington has taken the gold medal in the inaugural women’s BMX freestyle at Tokyo 2020 and, my word, didn’t she do it in fine fashion.
The 25-year-old scored a massive 97.50 out of a possible 100, beating out Team USA’s hopeful, Hannah Roberts, who has already won two FISE World Series championships (2017 and 2019) at just 19-years-old.
As for Worthington, she took home the gold with a fantastic run that features multiple backflips – one of which included a 360 – frontflips, wallrides and a move we don’t even know the technical term for. Just watch at 0:57.
GB's Charlotte Worthington has smashed her second run in the women's BMX freestyle final out of the park! 👏👏
She scores a HUGE 97.50 🙌
📺 Watch live on @BBCiPlayer and @BBCOne
📲 https://t.co/tRBaftzxWl #bbcolympics #Tokyo2020 https://t.co/EuxH6mNxWf
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 1, 2021
BMX has been a part of the Olympic Games since 2008 but had been done strictly in a racing set-up until now, but the new park freestyle format (similar to the new sport, skateboarding) has gone down as an absolute storm among viewers.
As you can see in the routine above, her 360-backflip was the first to be ever be completed in women’s Olympic history. It’s not hard to see why – how do people even do that?
Worthington quit her job as a chef in Manchester to pursue her career as a professional freestyle back in 2017 and despite falling in her first run, she managed to smash the judge’s scoring with this incredible achievement not long after.
Another one doing Team GB proud. Remember the name, Charlotte Worthington.
