Airdrie’s BMX racing superstar Abygale Reeve is feeling strong and ready for the World Cup season ahead, after spending the last two months in Medellin, Colombia, where she was training with two-time Olympic gold medallist Mariana Pajón.
“I was training for the upcoming BMX season with Team Canada, and all my races coming up in Europe,” Reeve said, shortly after returning to Airdrie from her stint in South America. “We were riding the track every single day for three to four hours, and just learning new skills. We trained like professional athletes. We were doing everything at top speed, and just giving it all on the track.”
Reeve said she felt immersed in her training like never before during her time spent in Medellin, which boasts an impressive BMX racing track with spectacular views of the city in the background.
“In the morning, I would do gym and lifting weights,” she said. “Lots of cleans and deadlifts, and all that kind of stuff to work on explosion … At night, we were doing four hours of training on the bikes.”
Not only does Reeve feel she has upped her physical game thanks to her extensive strength and conditioning regimen, but she also honed her mental edge thanks to Pajón and her coaching staff.
“My coach down there taught me that for every single effort you have to have your mind in it,” she explained. “You have to treat every single effort like a main event to do it as smooth as possible, and have the best technique every single time.”
For Reeve, who is a 10-time provincial BMX champion in Alberta and member of Team Canada, racing has always come fairly naturally. However, she said her trip to Colombia made her realize natural talent by itself cannot always take an athlete to the top of podium.
The work has to come first.
“She (Pajón) just showed me it’s all hard work,” Reeve stated. “You need the talent, but you also need to work super hard to get where you want to be. She taught me that.”
Reeve hoped the hard physical and mental conditioning she received under Pajón’s tutelage will translate into even greater success as she gets set to compete against the world’s best BMX racers in Turkey later this month, in her upcoming Team Canada competitions in Europe this summer.
She said she feels thankful for all the travel experiences she has had in her young life to date. In addition to her time in Colombia, the recent Bert Church High School grad has also travelled as far as the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the United States to compete in BMX in recent years.
That’s not too bad for a 17-year-old girl from Airdrie who loves BMX, she said.
“It is crazy how much I have been travelling, and how young I am [to still be] doing that,” Reeve reflected. “But you have to do it eventually, I am just starting at a young age. It has given me a (bigger) view on how the world works, and how different places are.”
