On The Up: Rotorua teen Maddy Newcombe wins fourth national BMX title

Maddy Newcombe was just 3 when she was on a pink and white plastic tricycle hooning around her parents’ deck, taking corners on two wheels.

She’d do lap after lap. If it rained? Even better, because it made skidding around the wooden deck even faster.

Eventually, mum Nikki Newcombe took her tricycle off her and gave it to her daycare.

“It was just too dangerous.”

Fast forward 10 years and the now 13-year-old from Rotorua is a four-time national BMX champion with her sights firmly fixed on making it to the Olympics.

Champion BMX rider Maddy Newcombe from Rotorua in full flight. Photo / Supplied

Maddy, a Year 9 student at Rotorua Lakes High School, has just cemented her ranking as the best in her age group after winning the 2025 BMZ New Zealand National Championships, held in Invercargill in March.

If there was any doubt, she got there by winning all seven of her races (the overall winner is decided on points taken over several races).

It was also no fluke. She’s won the title four times in a row. It would have been five in a row, but in 2021 as a 9-year-old, she was heading for a clean sweep again in all of her races when she “crashed out” in the final.

“I just did a dumb move,” Maddy said.

Rotorua's Maddy Newcombe, 13, has bagged her fourth national BMX title. Photo / Kelly Makiha

The following year at nationals in Hamilton, she was determined to show what she was made of but Covid-19 lockdowns prevented all of her devoted family from seeing her first national win in person.

“They still held the nationals but they did it in bubbles, and she was allowed one parent so Bryan (dad) went with her. I watched it in a caravan at a holiday park in Cambridge on my laptop and had to get leaky eyes all by myself,” Nikki Newcombe said.

She said Maddy was destined for two wheels because she could ride a bike before she could walk.

Nikki Newcombe said they took her along to a BMX open day when she was about 6, she won a “participation certification” and from then on she was hooked.

Maddy’s family are right behind her and have taken her all around the world for racing, including to Australia and the United States.

She’s got an Australian-based coach who is in almost daily contact with her. She follows his personalised training programme on an app, which includes track practice twice a week at the Rotorua BMX track, bike sprints and off-bike training including plyometric exercises, core work, squats, wall sits and sit ups.

Most weeks there’s other races and tournaments going on, and not necessarily just with BMX. For instance last week she raced the Mud Maidens downhill mountain bike event at Skyline Rotorua and at the weekend she had the North Island Secondary Schools Enduro event in Tauranga.

Maddy admits she’s competitive and loves a win. It’s her dream to make the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and be classed in the same category as top Australian riders Saya Sakakibara and Teya Rufus.

But despite all the medals, accolades and awards, she said the best part about her sport was that it was fun and she’s made so many like-minded friends around the world.

Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.