Landen Hiebert stays ahead of Landon Thiessen during a race in the 16 novice male division at the BMX track in Warman, which was part of the Diamond BMX Club’s weekly race night. Both Hiebert and Thiessen are part of the club’s high-level provincial team

The Diamond BMX Club’s tagline  is “building future Olympians” and to do so they created a high performance team consisting of 11 members.

The performance team receives specialized coaching to improve their skills, as well as to share that knowledge to the rest of the club.

The team is made up of riders within the club and it is pretty diverse. There are youth six years old all the way to 16, consisting of both male and female riders.

“The older riders are there to inspire the younger riders and then the team was actually developed so that they can take the coaching in which they have learned and then share it with the rest of the riders (in the club),” said Diamond BMX Club president Niall Schofield.

The team is receiving tutelage from Spruce Grove Alberta based BMX coach Kiran Kawa, via online. Kawa runs his own BMX program “On the Box Clinic” and brings his wealth of knowledge to improve the skills of these riders which he will be coaching until August 31.

They have been doing online sessions once a week with him, and he has also been visiting Warman to work with the riders one-on-one.

“The kids are very receptive and very eager to get some good coaching in and put it right in to their racing,” said Kawa.

In the month of June there were more in-person sessions, with Kawa, than online sessions because the high performance program was just starting, and now that it’s in full swing most of the sessions will be online through Google Meet.

Not only is this the first time where Kawa is working with a BMX club he is not affiliated for a consecutive three month stretch, this is also the first time he is offering his coaching duties remotely as well.

At 24 years old, Kawa is well-versed in the BMX realm. He started in the sport when he was eight years old and has raced at the national and international level.

Eventually, this team will be travelling to different tracks in other provinces representing the club.

“They get to travel and they get to go provincially to other tracks and get to experience different events,” said Schofield.

The team has been training for just over a month and the riders have seen improvement in there own skills and fitness level.

“It’s just a lot of cardio improvements and strength improvements,” said 13-year-old rider Landen Hiebert. “It’s a lot of teamwork, too. It’s an individual sport obviously, but as a team we all work together and get better together.”

Schofield also believes that the camaraderie between the riders is important to the team’s success.

“Everybody is positive, everybody is very encouraging, and there is no negativity at the track,” said Schofield.

Hiebert is in his seventh year of BMX, after starting out with Globe BMX in Saskatoon, and for the past five years he has gone to the clinics in Alberta that Kawa has organized. So he’s really excited to work with him for a long stretch of time to get better.

Not only does the team consist of experienced riders like Hiebert but newer riders like 10-year-old Ty Doran, who has only been in the sport for a year-and-a-half, are also on the team.

Since being on this team he as learned various of tricks while riding the course.

To keep that competitive spirit within the club, there will be tryouts conducted each year for the team.

“You have to earn your spot on the team and you have to stay engage and stay proactive in the sport,” said Schofield.

There are also four affiliate riders, in case a rider on the team gets injured or is not putting forth the effort that is expected at the high performance level.

“It’s good to push the riders and challenge them and be able to have the education to harness that energy,” said Schofield.