"I’d say my dad loves BMX too much. He loves it more than I do!"
Kye Whyte is the 24-year-old Londoner who won silver at Tokyo to gain Team GB’s first ever BMX medal. Since then he's got gold and silver at European and World Championships, but it's dad and ex-racer Nigel who keeps the wheels in motion…
© Vincent Dolman
- Laura Rutkowski
KYE
I was two-going-on-three when I learnt how to ride a bike. Then maybe a couple of months after that, I was on the BMX track. I just wanted to do what my older brothers were doing [Kye is one of six kids and has two older brothers, Daniel and Tre]. My first bike was silver and from Argos. My brothers were riding about on it, doing jumps on plastic ramps, and they broke it. My first proper race bike was an SE. My current bike is a pink GT, which has become my signature.
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Coming from where I come from, it was almost impossible for me to achieve what I have so far. In Peckham, there’s a lot of robberies and gang violence. I wouldn’t have gotten into crime, because my dad is such a sporty person. [Nigel is his former coach and co-founder of Peckham BMX Club. In 2017, he was crowned BMX Coach of the Year by Southwark Council.]
Everyone knew me as the BMX kid. I wanted to be the best. I was always training, so I wasn’t on the street doing silly things. My mum said I threw tantrums if she tried to take me off the tracks. I’m also a bad loser. I used to win a lot when I was a kid, but one time, when I knew I was about to lose, I made a mistake on purpose, and acted like I was in pain.
© Vincent Dolman
My parents sacrificed a lot to get my siblings and me to training and the races. I’d say my dad loves BMX too much. He loves it more than I do! We made it a family thing. We’d have six of us with all the bikes in a seven-seater Vauxhall Zafira. Then we’d have an eight-man tent for camping at competitions. When I was nine, my parents couldn’t afford to come to my race, so I had to stay with my sponsor. By the time I was 18, Daniel had retired, and then it was just Tre and me. I wouldn’t say it was a rivalry, it was more healthy competition.
I live and train in Manchester at an indoor facility that has a velodrome on one side, a BMX centre on the other, and the gym in between. I’ll go to the gym for three hours in the morning and do stretching, then plyometrics, squats, leg presses, dead lifts, arms and core. Then I’ll do bike training for two to three hours. It’s eat, train, PlayStation5, sleep, repeat.
I crashed and was put in an induced coma for five days
I eat big portions to bulk up. I’ll have a lot of carbohydrates – pasta for energy and chicken for protein. I love chicken wings – I have them every day. I don’t count calories. If I feel strong, and I don’t look fat, then I’m all right.
People don’t realise how dangerous BMX can be. You’re allowed to hit each other. When I crashed when I was 13 I was knocked unconscious and put into an induced coma for five days. I had a bleed on the brain and a broken jaw. It took me about a year to recover. When I started riding again, I was so unfit. I threw up when I rode for the first time after the accident. It is scary to come back, but you’ve just got to get on with it.
I’m not much of a talker, so if I call my dad, it’s very short, but my brother Tre and I speak all the time. My dad gets annoying when I’m competing. He talks too much. I told him to stop messaging me on race days, because he gets a bit excited. I’m so chilled. Obviously encouragement is good, but I feel like people worry more than I do, and they’re not the ones competing.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when I won silver, someone pointed me towards a screen and I saw kids from the club, my nephews, nieces, brothers and sisters, my whole family. I was like, “Damn.” It was probably 5am in London. I had a bubble in my throat when you’re about to cry – but I didn’t cry, whatever my dad says!
NIGEL
© Vincent Dolman
I have three sons – Daniel, Tre and Kye – and three girls – Billie, Niah and Lasharn. Tre, who’s coaching now, was the first to try BMX when he was nine. Daniel is retired, but he’s done a few races. Lasharn also raced for a while. I didn’t let Kye go to the track with his older brothers straightaway because he was too young, but he was already pretty good on his bike. He started BMX when he was about three. I took him to Brockwell Park and he must have done 20 or 30 laps. I had to keep trying to stop him. Then someone shouted, “Your son is on the floor.”
He was asleep on the finishing line!
I wanted the boys to play football, but they couldn’t kick a ball too well. I played for about two or three different football teams and got to semi-pro. Then it was like, “All right, I’ll throw the boots in the garage, and we’ll get some bikes.” I only took up BMX because of the boys – that was when I was in my late 20s, early 30s.
I started competing as well. In 2005, I became summer and winter regional champion and, in 2009, I won my first national race, finishing fourth overall. I was a dustman, so people used to say, “It’s Daddy Whyte, the fastest dustman in south London!” I now do ground maintenance for Burgess Park, which is the home of Peckham BMX Club.
In 2009, I won my first national race. I was a dustman, so people used to say, 'It’s Daddy Whyte, the fastest dustman in south London!'
Nigel Whyte
I co-founded the club with former BMX racer and DJ, CK Flash, aka Michael Pusey MBE. He was Tre’s first coach and got the boys into it. I coached Tre, Daniel and Kye until they went to British Cycling. Kye left in 2017 aged 18 and moved to Manchester, where the GB Cycling HQ is. If a child shows dedication to a sport, the parents have to be there as well. If getting to a race meant the boys going in a friend’s caravan and their mum Tracey and me sleeping in a car, we would do it.
When Kye was competing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, it was Covid, so we couldn’t travel, but we had about 200 people gathered to watch him on TV – his brothers, his sisters, all the little riders from the club. We had a video link set up, so we could talk to him afterwards. He came to the screen and wasn’t expecting everyone to be there. He’ll tell you it didn’t make him cry, but he cried.
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Kye Whyte competes in BMX Cycling, which begins Tuesday 30 July
Authors
Laura Rutkowski
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