Cycling New Zealand has regretfully accepted the resignation of its BMX Team Leader and Coach, Ryan Hollows after 11 years with the organisation.
Ryan has been a part of Cycling New Zealand’s BMX programme from its inception in 2005 and since the 2012 London Olympics he has been the Team Leader and Coach of the BMX high performance programme.
He believes the time is right to move in a different direction, and spend more time with his young family after being out of New Zealand for five months this year.
His involvement has mirrored a time of significant change in the sport at the elite level in terms of the nature of the elite competition, the massive growth in numbers and development of high performance athletes with its introduction s an Olympic sport eight years ago.
We understand Ryan’s reasoning to stepping aside and acknowledge his significant contribution to the sport, to our organisation and to the development of BMX into a high performance sport.
With limited resource Ryan has undertaken a wide scope of activities and organisation from hands-on coaching to planning and delivering campaigns to far-flung destinations around the world. The qualification process alone to ensure we have strong representation at World Championships and the Olympics required a high level of guidance and leadership. Ryan has shown great skills in this area to ensure our riders strongly supported on the world stage.
Cycling New Zealand is still completing its review process from the Rio Olympics and in the process of developing the planned BMX Performance Hub, and therefore they are not yet in a position to finalise the future make-up of its BMX high performance strategy.