New Zealand BMX champion, Leila Walker has completed her first season of her own version of Home and Away which has transformed her aspirations in the sport.
Walker returns home next week from her base with the UCI BMX Racing Development team at the UCI headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland.
With her accommodation, training and travel costs met and with fulltime coaching at their base and at all events, the New Zealand champion has blossomed.
Finishing the 2025 season in 11th overall and making just one final, Walker was simply not enjoying the sport. But an opportunity arose to be part of the UCI BMX Racing Development team for 2026.
“It was a leap of faith to change environment, change training, join a team, change coaches and have all of our racing season taken care of,” said Walker.
“I changed absolutely everything to be honest, and I am now really, really enjoying riding my bike and feeling super-confident.”
After making one elite final last season, Walker has finished the 2026 season making seven elite finals and achieving two podiums. She now sits seventh overall on the elite rankings, ahead of current Olympic champion Saya Sakakibara.
As a result, with Rotorua’s Megan Williams 17th, New Zealand lies sixth on the women’s world rankings, ahead of BMX strongholds USA and France.
There are eight young riders from developing nations in the BMX team with their training base in Aigle while the group travel together to European and UCI races.
“Until now I was training largely on my own. And with competition I would travel and compete on my own. That is just the way it is in New Zealand. I’m only 21 so it was a lot of stress and pressure just doing every day stuff like travel, accommodation, sorting my training and racing.
“Now it has taken a lot of stress off me as an athlete, like logistics, travel, while we now have coaching and mechanical support at every race. That has been a huge thing. Our coach travels with us so we have feedback and direction at events.
“The coaching team is here to support me and the rest of the team. My one job is to ride a bike fast.”
Walker said she knew she had much more potential but that something had to change.
“I lot of the improvement has come from feeling amazing on my bike and being happy and excited to be racing. A happy athlete is a fast athlete. The biggest shift has been mental but also, it’s huge to have this support system on and off the bike.
“The knock-on effect from the training environment, all our travel paid for and organised, the coaching and technical support on hand – all the things that are part of a professional team – has been huge.
“I feel really good on my bike. I am riding more aggressively. I am putting myself into gaps that I would have previously hesitated to go into.”
Walker was asked what her goals were for the final two World Cup rounds last month?
“I said to make two finals, because I missed the final in China. I’ve ended up making five World Cup finals this season and two podiums. It does not seem real.”
Walker said fellow elite Megan Williams and junior medallist Lily Greenough, who has just moved to elite, are both “performing phenomenally and making great progress.” She believes New Zealand is heading in the right direction to potentially qualify two women for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
For now, Walker will return home to complete her studies and enjoy time off the bike ahead of preparations for the home and Oceania season and then return to Switzerland in February for what she plans will be continued success.
Leila Walker in action in Sarasota (Credit Cole McOnie)