BMX innovator Johan Lindstrom brings Supercross World Cup to Sarasota

Connor Fields remembers the exact moment his goal as a BMX racer became the gold medal. He was 15, watching the 2008 Summer Olympics from his bedroom when Latvia’s Maris Strombergs won gold in Beijing.

Until that moment, BMX was a small-scale sport. The $500 checks Fields remembered his favorite racers lifting after wins didn’t seem as big as they once did. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he could thank Johan Lindstrom, who now lives in Sarasota, for the change.

“Structure was added,” said Fields, an American who won gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics. “I’m lucky enough that I’m probably around at the best time there’s ever been opportunity-wise.”

Lindstrom is the godfather of modern BMX racing. He helped invent supercross, now the most common discipline within the sport, which in turn brought BMX to the Summer Olympics. He has designed courses in 25 countries, including all three of the tracks used in the Olympics. Global SX Events, the management company he runs, operates the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup.

This year, Lindstrom brought the BMX Supercross World Cup to his new home. About a year-and-a-half ago, Lindstrom moved to Sarasota and soon after spearheaded the renovation of the Sarasota BMX Track. He redesigned it with Olympic standards in mind, envisioning Sarasota as a potential epicenter for the sport in the United States. This weekend, the facility will play host to the premier professional event with the final leg of the Supercross World Cup on Saturday and Sunday.

The BMX Track now stands up against some of the Olympic tracks Lindstrom has designed during the sport’s three cycles as a sanctioned sport. It begins with the biggest jump in Sarasota, a 45-foot ramp, which requires riders to clear a patch of grass before landing on dirt again. Eight years ago in Beijing the size would have frightened even the most gifted riders.

“People would’ve looked at it and been like, ‘No. That’s way too big,’” Fields said. “Now it’s just Tuesday and we’re going to ride the track.”

Lindstrom can be credited for that growth, too. When he started working for Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) 16 years ago, he was tasked with growing the sport from a children’s activity into a full-fledged professional sport. Three years in, it brought him to Beijing.

The Summer Olympics wanted to revamp its roster with younger sports in the same way the Winter Olympics had reinvigorated itself with freestyle skiing and snowboarding. BMX checked all the basic boxes: It’s competed internationally by both men and women, and had massive potential for growth. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games flew him to China.

Lindstrom remembers sitting in a room filled with computers and what he remembers as about 50 Chinese officials. They peppered him with basic questions.

“What if all the riders crash?” one asked. “Who’s the winner?”

“What do you mean?” Lindstrom said. “It’s BMX. They’re going to drag their bike across the finish line.”

The official shook his head. The BMX’s lax attitude wouldn’t fit. In the five years between receiving Olympic approval in 2003 and the first race in 2008 the rulebook expanded from about 20 pages to 50.

“The sport grew up pretty quick,” Lindstrom said.

In the process, he created supercross, a more spectator-friendly, wider-appeal iteration. Traditionally, BMX courses were filled with ramps that were closer to speed bumps than jumps. He hired Tom Ritzenthaler, the sport’s most accomplished course designer, to help oversee the design in Beijing. They built bigger jumps, wider tracks and looser turns. There needed to be room for racers to pass each other, jump by each other and cut late deficits on a wide turn.

In 2011, Lindstrom left UCI for his own venture with Ritzenhalter as Elite Trax. They’ve kept the same design philosophy intact as they’ve turned their success at the 2008 Olympics into far and away the most prevalent course-design company on the planet, with more than 100 tracks worldwide. In less than a decade, tracks that would have seemed overwhelming to professionals have become accessible to skilled teenagers.

“What we built four years ago doesn’t really apply today,” Lindstrom said. “The riders are getting faster, they’re getting stronger, they’re getting better. The progression is still there. It’s hard for us to keep up.”

Fields sees the sport steadying now. Speed improvements are coming in slivers of 1 or 2 percent rather than 10- or 15-percent chunks, so Lindstrom doesn’t have to worry about tracks going out of date as quickly now as he did a decade ago.

Which means the sport can grow even more rapidly worldwide. As he glances at this weekend’s field, the handful of Russian riders immediately stand out. Even two years ago, Lindstrom said, Russia had almost no presence.

Eastern Europe is one part of the world where Lindstrom is increasing his presence with track design, along with Asia. In recent years, Elite Trax built the first tracks in Azerbaijian, Malaysia and Singapore.

The next destination, he hopes, is one he sees as another sleeping giant.

“I’m just waiting,” Lindstrom said, “for India to catch on.”

This story was originally published October 6, 2016 at 10:54 PM with the headline "BMX innovator Johan Lindstrom brings Supercross World Cup to Sarasota."