Nikita Ducarroz, born in France and raised in Glen Ellen, will compete in the Women’s BMX Freestyle event at the Summer X Games on Friday, June 28 in Ventura, CA. The event, which will make its X Games debut, will be carried on ESPN at 3:30 PST.
The 27-year-old took a Bronze in the Women’s BMX Freestyle event at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the first time it was an Olympic sport. Recently, on June 22 in Budapest, Ducarroz qualified as an individual to compete in her event in the Paris Olympics in July. She is one of six women who earned this right to compete in the event independent of whether their country qualifies. It is considered a “golden ticket” to the Olympics. Ducarroz rides for Switzerland, her father’s home country.
Her mother, Nicole Abaté Ducarroz, noted that this is not the first time Nikita will be at the X Games – she watched them in San Francisco, seated on her father’s shoulders when she was three. The internationally-ranked rider remembers being at those Games.
According to an article from National Geographic, the X Games get their name from several influences. At the inauguration of the event, the target market for attendees were in Generation X, and most of the athletes competing were Gen Xers too. Of course, X also is short for “extreme” which the games certainly are. X is also the mathematical symbol for the unknown, which X Games fans have come to expect.
Ducarroz told the Sun that the biggest challenge for her of the X Games is that it’s a different style course from what she typically rides, which are big wooden ramps. At the X Games, “it’s a tight cement bowl, a lot less forgiving.” The Games are televised live and free: https://www.xgames.com/events/x-games-ventura-2024/how-to-watch
After this event she heads back to Europe to spend the final three weeks training in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany with her Dutch coach. The Swiss-American rider is currently ranked 5th in the world. She took silver in the 2021 UCI BMX World Championships in Montpellier, gold at the 2021 European Championships in Moscow, and silver at the Urban Cycling BMX Freestyle World Championships in Abu Dhabi in 2022, among other podium finishes.
Notwithstanding her extraordinary success, Ducarroz is open about how she has struggled with anxiety since adolescence. Her own mental health challenge inspired her to found, with a friend, a mental health support project: an Instagram site where people from the action sports community share their stories of anxiety and depression, and how they deal with it. See #M1ndTricks.
See interview with Ducarroz in 2021 before the Tokyo Games:
— Story by Anna Pier
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