Huge week for back-flipping biking phenom
Micah Wallace is more excited about learning to backflip her bike than being a BMX world champion.
By Louis Johnston
The accomplished 12-year-old Taupō Intermediate star had a huge week at the Zespri AIMS Games in Tauranga this week, picking up four medals over three intense sporting codes.
The Zespri AIMS Games is New Zealand’s biggest school sporting tournament, hosted annually in Tauranga. It ran from September 5-11.
This year saw a record 14,506 entries from 467 schools, including 11 international schools from Australia, the Cook Islands and Fiji. The intermediate-aged athletes have been competing this week across 27 sporting codes.
Fresh from winning the Year 7 mountain biking enduro race - having earlier dominated the BMX competition, as expected - when asked to choose her most notable recent feat, Micah immediately went back to the backflip she landed in May.
Not that AIMS Games didn’t also feature highly.
Micah says she is over the moon with her wins at AIMS Games, but most of all she was just happy to be involved with the event.
“It’s been pretty fun,” she says.
“I’ve seen lots of old friends and made new friends. It’s just a vibe at AIMS.”
In July, Micah won the Under-12 Girls Cruiser class at the UCI BMX World Championships in Brisbane, and finished as World No. 2 in the Under-12 20-inch class.
She also picked up a silver medal in the Under-12 Freestyle event.
And bringing her multi-discipline talents back to New Zealand, she showed her versatility by competing in BMX, mountain biking, and cross country running (where she finished 29th).
Micah says that despite her success in certain sports and disciplines, she doesn’t have a specialty and considers herself an all-rounder with “skills across the board”.
She proved that point in her enduro race, beating home Mount Maunganui’s Neva Booker-Nash, and Tauranga’s Niwha Heke.
“I was pretty excited to get on that podium, it feels great!” she says.
“I had a few offs in GT to Cliffhanger but it was fine, the uphill kind of sucks, pretty tiring, but yeah, just had to push past that barrier.”
Micah has been “riding as long as she could walk” according to her coach and father Adam Wallace, who encourages other parents to let their kids try biking.
“If you’re ever thinking about riding bikes and your kids are a little bit hesitant, just get on a bike with them and just go ride. It’s not about winning; it’s just about riding and fostering that love for it.”
Micah will be happy to bring her medal haul back home to Taupō Intermediate, as she looks ahead to “North Island champs for BMX and maybe Worlds for next year”.