Sam Willoughby

Sam Willoughby (born 15 August 1991 in Bedford Park, South Australia) is an Australian former BMX racing cyclist, known as the BMX bandit, who won an Olympic silver medal in 2012. He left Adelaide at sixteen for California with his bike and a backpack, won the junior BMX title in 2008 and 2009, and moved into the senior ranks within two years. He won his first senior world championship in May 2012, which lifted him to number one in the world, and then took silver in the men's BMX at the 2012 Summer Olympics. At the 2016 Olympics he won his semi-final but finished sixth in the final. A training crash in September 2016 left him tetraplegic and ended his career. He married American BMX rider Alise Post in 2019 and now coaches her.