This summer, while some of us were relaxing, on vacation or working junior Alexis Alden was setting records in her BMX division. 

“I am now the second best in the world for BMX in my age group for both of my bikes,” Alden said. 

Alden spent the first few weeks of August competing in Glasgow, Scotland, at the UCI BMX World Championships.

This time last year, Alden was number seven in the world. 

“I was in France last year around July and I prepared not as much for that as I did this year,” Alden said. “Last year, it [the race] took a toll on me because I didn’t do as good as I wanted to because I got crashed out, so mentally I wasn’t there in that race, so I ended up getting seventh in the world,” Alden said.

Like athletes in any other sport, Alden has built up her career over the years through hard work, practice and dedication.

“My dad did motocross before I was born and his friend owned a bike shop and he was wondering what these bikes were so he let us run it and we took a track that was like ten minutes away from our house and we just loved it. Me and my brother [have] loved it ever since,” Alden said. 

Balancing school and other responsibilities is heavily a part of high school culture, and no less is this true for Alden.

“I try to not let it take a toll on me because I tell my dad ‘Hey, I cannot do two hours of practice.’ Sometimes I have to skip it. It does affect [me] not practicing because I actually have a race this weekend coming up and I haven’t practiced at all this week. It’s going to be a little different because I’ve had so much school,” Alden said. 

BMX is not as common as other sports like football. Finding a mentor who understands the ins and outs could have been challenging, however Alden has her friend Carly Kane, another rider in her sport.

“[Kane is] super strong. When you crash it affects you, but she gets back up. She continues to train, she doesn’t throw her career away. She goes back, and fights for it even more,” Alden said.

As she approaches her senior year, Alden’s goals look a bit different from the average high school student.

 “I plan to become world one. Honestly just do better over the whole year and maybe mainly work on mentally winning because it’s way easier to be hard on yourself than positive,” Alden said.