Jamie Staff — The Kent BMX Racer Who Won a World Title, Then Olympic Gold

Legend Bike Co · BMX heritage series

Most people who know the name Jamie Staff know it from a velodrome. They picture a man in a British skinsuit standing over a track bike in Beijing, first man in a three-man line, about to ride the lap that set up an Olympic gold medal and a world record. That is a fair thing to remember him for. It is also the second half of the story.

The first half is BMX, and it ran a lot longer. Staff spent close to twenty years on a BMX bike before he ever raced a kilo. He came up through the British boom, won a European title as a teenager, turned professional, moved to California, won a world championship, and was still winning national titles in the United States at twenty-eight. The track was not a career change so much as a decision, made at the end of the 2001 season, to go get something BMX could not give him at the time — because BMX was not yet an Olympic sport.

Ashford, 1984

Staff was born in Ashford, Kent, on 30 April 1973, and picked up BMX at nine years old for the oldest reason in the sport: his friends were doing it. He arrived on the UK national scene in 1984, right in the middle of the British boom, and the British BMX Hall of Fame records that he was picked up quickly by the Raleigh factory team — a serious place for a kid to land — riding alongside established British national champions including Craig Schofield, Martin Jose and Brad Smith.

His amateur years put him against a generation of British riders who were pushing each other hard: Danny Stabielli, Lee Pickstone, Joe Eastwood. Between them they traded national titles and European titles, and in 1989 the European championship went to Staff. He capped the amateur run in 1990 with a third place at the IBMXF World Championships in France, behind Christophe Leveque and David Milham, and turned professional shortly after.

Superclass, and a decision about California

Through the first half of the 1990s, British Superclass racing was one of the deepest fields in Europe, and Staff was in the middle of it alongside Dale Holmes, Neal Wood and Dylan Clayton — four riders chasing the same wins and the same number one plates in the UK and on the continent.

1995 was the year that pushed him across the Atlantic. He took another third place at the world championships, held that year in Colombia. He won the European championships. And he won the inaugural UCI World Cup event, at a moment when the sport's international governing structure was still being built out. At the end of that season he packed and moved to California.

Along the way he rode for a long list of teams. The British BMX Hall of Fame lists SE, Boss, Hotshot, Titan and Webco in Britain, then Haro and GT once he was racing in the United States.

1996 — Huntington Beach and a rainbow jersey

He landed in Huntington Beach and Haro picked him up. What followed was the best stretch of his BMX career. In 1996 he won the UCI World Cup outright, and at the world championships in Brighton — back home, in front of a British crowd — he won the Elite Cruiser title. That is the world championship on his record, and it is worth naming the class precisely: Elite Cruiser, the 24-inch class, at Brighton, in 1996.

The years after that kept him busy in ways that did not always look like gate racing. He rode the Vans Triple Crown downhill series and the X Games BMX downhill event — the 2002 X Games downhill race is on the record — which put him on a bike against gravity rather than against seven other riders out of a gate. And in 2001, back in traditional racing, he took the NBL Pro national championship in the United States, the top elite men's class in that sanction. A British rider winning an American national number one plate at that level was not a small thing.

The switch

At the end of 2001 he made the call. He wanted an Olympic medal, BMX racing was not an Olympic sport yet — it would not join the program until Beijing in 2008, by which point he had already gone — and so he turned to track cycling. He qualified for the GB Cycling Team at the first attempt.

The speed of what happened next is the part that still reads strangely. At the 2002 Commonwealth Games he took silver in the England team sprint, bronze in the kilometre behind his own GB teammates Chris Hoy and Jason Queally, and reached the semi-finals of the individual sprint, breaking the national 200 meter record on the way. Later that same year, less than twelve months after taking up track racing, he was part of the Great Britain trio that won the team sprint at the world championships in Copenhagen.

2003 brought two personal bests in the kilometre, a World Cup kilometre win in Mexico with a sprint silver at the same round, and a team sprint World Cup win in South Africa. In 2004 he won the keirin world title at the world championships in Melbourne and took team sprint bronze at the same meet. The Athens Olympics that summer did not go his way — he rode the keirin and the team sprint and medaled in neither, despite setting the second-fastest time in team sprint qualifying before Germany knocked GB out.

He won another team sprint world title in 2005, then spent several years collecting silvers and bronzes: team sprint silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, team sprint silver at the 2006 world championships, kilometre bronze at the 2007 worlds, team sprint silver at the 2008 worlds.

Beijing

Then Beijing. In the men's team sprint at the 2008 Olympic Games, Staff rode first man for Great Britain with Jason Kenny second and Chris Hoy third. They broke the world record and won the gold medal. Wikipedia's account of the ride credits Staff with the fastest opening lap ever ridden in a team sprint — the specialist job, and the one a BMX racer with two decades of gate starts behind him was built for.

He was appointed MBE in the 2009 New Year Honours, published in The London Gazette on 31 December 2008. He took one more world championship team sprint silver in 2009 and announced his retirement from racing on 28 March 2010.

Coaching

In June 2010, USA Cycling hired him to manage its national track sprint program. He later moved across to BMX, the sport he had come from, and the results followed him there. The British BMX Hall of Fame credits his direction with USA Cycling's BMX program winning its first Olympic gold medal at Rio 2016, taken by Connor Fields. When BMX Freestyle was added to the Tokyo 2020 program, Staff took over that program too, and it won a medal in the discipline's Olympic debut — a silver.

In November 2024 the British BMX Hall of Fame inducted him in the Male Racer category, Class of 2024. Their write-up frames him the way the record supports: one of the very few riders to win world championships in more than one cycling discipline.

Timeline

• 1973 Born 30 April in Ashford, Kent.
• ~1982 Starts BMX at nine years old.
• 1984 Arrives on the UK national scene; signs with the Raleigh factory team.
• 1989 European champion.
• 1990 Third at the IBMXF World Championships in France, behind Christophe Leveque and David Milham; turns professional.
• Early 90s Superclass battles with Dale Holmes, Neal Wood and Dylan Clayton in the UK and Europe.
• 1995 Third at the world championships in Colombia; wins the European championships; wins the inaugural UCI World Cup event; moves to California at season's end.
• 1996 Signs with Haro in Huntington Beach. Wins the UCI World Cup and the Elite Cruiser world title at the Brighton world championships.
• 2001 Wins the NBL Pro (Elite Men) national championship in the United States, then decides to switch to track cycling.
• 2002 Commonwealth Games team sprint silver and kilometre bronze for England; national 200 m record. Team sprint world champion with GB in Copenhagen, under a year after taking up the track.
• 2002 Races the X Games BMX downhill event.
• 2003 World Cup kilometre win in Mexico; team sprint World Cup win in South Africa.
• 2004 Keirin world champion in Melbourne; team sprint world bronze. Rides the Athens Olympics without a medal.
• 2005 Team sprint world champion again.
• 2006-2008 Team sprint silver at the Commonwealth Games and the 2006 and 2008 worlds; kilometre bronze at the 2007 worlds.
• 2008 Olympic team sprint gold in Beijing with Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy, in world record time.
• 2009 Appointed MBE in the New Year Honours. Team sprint world silver.
• 2010 Announces retirement on 28 March. Joins USA Cycling in June to manage the national track sprint program.
• 2016 USA Cycling's BMX racing program wins its first Olympic gold under his direction, with Connor Fields at Rio.
• 2020 Takes over the USA BMX Freestyle program; it takes silver in the discipline's Olympic debut in Tokyo.
• 2024 Inducted into the British BMX Hall of Fame, Male Racer category.

Sources

British BMX Hall of Fame, "Congratulations to Jamie Staff! Inducted into the British BMX Hall of Fame Class of 2024 — Male Racer," 26 November 2024 — the primary source for his BMX career: the Raleigh factory team, his teammates and rivals, the 1989 European title, the 1990 IBMXF Worlds third place in France, the Superclass years, 1995 in Colombia, the move to California, the Haro pickup, the 1996 UCI World Cup and Brighton Elite Cruiser title, the 2001 NBL Pro championship, the Vans Triple Crown and X Games downhill racing, and his coaching record at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. Wikipedia, "Jamie Staff" — birth date and birthplace, the full track palmares year by year, the 2002 Commonwealth Games results and national 200 m record, the 2002 Copenhagen team sprint world title, the 2004 Melbourne keirin world title, the Beijing 2008 team sprint gold and opening-lap note, the MBE, the 28 March 2010 retirement, and the June 2010 USA Cycling hire; that entry cites the Beijing 2008 official athlete biography, The London Gazette issue 58929 (31 December 2008) for the MBE, a bmxultra.com interview for his BMX background, USA Cycling's own June 2010 hiring announcement, and a 2011 Cycling Shorts interview for the Kent academy plan. usacycling.org — checked for a current job title; the January 2025 announcement hiring Jamie Bestwick as BMX Freestyle national team coach does not name Staff, so no current title is asserted here. bmxsociety.com was unreachable during this research and bmxmuseum.com blocks server-side access; both are flagged as open follow-ups, not cited.

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