New Australian BMX Champion Khalen Young. (Image credit: Derrick Mellish)
Khalen Young won his first Australian BMX title in Newcastle just weeks after winning the first round of the UCI Supercross World Cup in Madrid, Spain. The 23 year-old originally from Perth rode from the inside lane and edged ahead of 33 year-old Wade Bootes and Luke Madill, currently ranked fourth in the world, who finished second and third respectively.
After being away from the sport for four years, Young has only been training for the last six months and is focused on gaining selection for the sport's debut in the Olympic Games next year in Beijing. Young recently moved his base to Sydney to train with the BMX High Performance Squad and was confident heading into the weekend's national titles having taken the World Cup lead in Spain last month.
"I kind of went into the race thinking I was going to win," explained Young, who had an advantage by having first choice of lanes. "It's the kind of track where you need to get the inside lane."
