Abe Schneider

On a summer’s day in Beijing in 2008, something happened that changed the sport of BMX forever. For the first time in history, BMX racing was contested at the Olympic Games. Riders from around the world — including Australia’s own Luke Madill — took to the start gate on the world’s greatest sporting stage.

It was a moment of joy for millions of BMX riders, parents, coaches, and officials across the globe. And it was the realisation of a dream that one man had spent more than fifteen years — fifteen years — fighting to make real.

That man was Abe Schneider.

Abe’s connection to BMX in Australia stretches back to the very beginning of the sport in Western Australia in the late 1970s. He was there when it was nothing more than a few kids on bikes, racing on dirt. He was a founding member of the Western Australian BMX Association, and a founding member of BMX Australia itself. From the start, he understood something that not everyone could see: that this was not a fad. That this was a sport with the potential to matter on the world stage.

And so he went to work.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Abe rose through the international ranks of BMX governance. He served as Director of Pacific Affairs for the International BMX Federation, was Australia’s representative at the pivotal 1992 IBMXF congress in Brazil — where the first agreement to integrate BMX into the UCI was reached — and later sat on the UCI BMX Commission as Australia and New Zealand’s representative. He was also one of the most respected race commentators in the sport, calling the action at the 1986 IBMXF World Championships in Slough, England.

He was President of BMX Australia. He was President of BMX UCI International. He mentored officials. He taught developing nations how to build tracks and run competitions. He sat across the table from the International Olympic Committee and made the case — again and again, through setbacks and public scepticism — that BMX deserved to be in the Games.

It took close to fifteen years. But it happened.

The Australian Sports Medal. International Olympic commendations. BMX Australia Life Member. And in 2020, Abe Schneider was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia — one of the highest civilian honours this nation bestows. It is recognition that is richly, deeply, completely deserved.

Generations of BMX riders have competed at World Championships, at Olympics, in clubs across this country — because Abe Schneider gave forty years of his life to make sure they could.

Tonight, with enormous gratitude and pride, we welcome Abe Schneider into the Australian BMX Hall Of Fame.