Throughout the annuls of Australian BMX history, there has never been a career quite like Jaclyn Wilson’s. Her story is unique because she has been so successful, for so long. She has been collecting Australian BMX #1 plates for nearly 40 years and she plans on winning a few more.

Jaclyn’s career started in 1981 as a three-year-old at the Kangaroo Flat BMX track in Bendigo, Victoria. By the age of seven she had claimed fifth place at the Australian Titles in Launceston, Tasmania, and travelled to Whistler, Canada to finish a creditable fourth place at her first World Championships.  It was only a few short years later that Jaclyn set the wildly ambitious plan to win the World Title in Chile in 1988.  Punching out countless hill sprints every morning in the icy predawn light of winter in her hometown Bendigo, Jaclyn trained the house down, like no other 10-year-old in the world.  True to her word, Jaclyn won in Santiago, Chile, returning home a World Champion!

A year later she claimed the very first of her twenty-five National #1 plates and finished second at the World Titles in Brisbane.  This was the year that her parents made the remarkable decision to pack up the family home, sell the family business, and drive to the Gold Coast from Bendigo to ‘improve Jaclyn’s opportunities’ as a dedicated young BMX racer.  The move to the Miami BMX Club training environment paid immediate dividends for Jaclyn as she totally dominated her opposition in 1990, winning both the National and World Titles for the second time. Despite fierce competition from close rivals Renee McKean and Helena Giblett, Jaclyn was simply unbeatable.

By her early teens, Jaclyn had embarked on a hairdresser career, and her dedication to training and racing had to take a back seat. In her 20’s, she returned to Bendigo, settled down, ran a successful hairdressing salon, and had a family. Then, as a spritely 32-year-old mother of two, Jaclyn reappeared at the track.  Thirteen years after last competing in a BMX race, she lined up at the National Titles in Perth and duly won the 20-inch 17+ class and 30-34 Cruiser Class #1 plates. Later that year she reclaimed her age class World Title, an honour she had last won nineteen years ago! Jaclyn Wilson was back.

Since then, Jaclyn has amassed another twenty-one national titles and another world crown in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2010, at the age of thirty-three she entered the Elite Women’s division at the Shepperton Aussie Titles and claimed the Australia #2 plate against girls almost half her age. Jaclyn knows that her success has come through relentless training and dedication to her sport.  She also acknowledges that she would not have been the sportswomen she has been without the love and support of her wonderful parents and godparents.

Jaclyn is the current #1 Female Vet Pro in the country and is training harder than ever to retain that crown.  Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Bendigo’s queen of BMX, Jaclyn Wilson.