Five years ago, Kai Sakakibara’s world nearly ended on the BMX track in Bathurst. At 23, he was a rising star when a devastating crash left him with a traumatic brain injury, casting doubt on whether he would survive, let alone walk or race again. But last week, Sakakibara proved his resilience by claiming the national title in the Para C1 1000m time trial at Brisbane’s Anna Meares Velodrome.
“I feel great,” he says, though he acknowledges there’s still much ahead of him. “I have a long way to go before I get to where I need to be.”
For the past five years, his recovery has been nothing short of extraordinary. After the crash, Sakakibara was in a coma for weeks and, for a time, unable to walk or talk. His first memory after the accident is from Liverpool Hospital, but even then, he thought it was a dream. “I thought I’d wake up one day and just go train,” he recalls. “But that wasn’t the case.”
During the first month, Sakakibara, now 28, was confined to a wheelchair. With no clear prognosis, he faced the uncertainty of whether he’d ever return to competitive sport—something he had been intensely pursuing before the accident. “BMX was all I thought about,” he admits. “I didn’t know what else I was going to do.”
Luckily, rowing and track cycling became his new focus, providing not only a path forward but a sense of community with others who had faced similar life-changing injuries. His transition to para-rowing was a revelation. “I thought, ‘What can I do here?’ It drove me.”
Sakakibara’s comeback to cycling was gradual, as fear of another crash lingered. But after a visit to the velodrome with his sister, Olympic gold medallist Saya, something changed. “Those fears weren’t there anymore,” he says.
Though only back on the bike for a few months, he’s already setting his sights on a Paralympic medal in Los Angeles in three years. “It would be a dream come true.”
the emotional aftermath of Saya’s BMX gold at the Paris Olympics, the siblings shared a moment of triumph. “I didn’t really get what had happened at first,” Kai says. “But when Saya hugged me and said, ‘We did it,’ it sunk in. That was special.”
After five challenging years, Kai Sakakibara’s return to cycling marks a powerful new chapter. “It’s huge,” says his father, Martin. “Seeing him doing something he loves again is huge.”
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