Martin finishes 5th, Diehm 11th at BMX Freestyle World Cup in Montpellier

ARA Australian Cycling Team’s Logan Martin has finished fifth at the first UCI BMX Freestyle World Cup of 2025, his first outing as the current world champion.

Wearing the rainbow jersey, Martin posted a score of 89.5 points on his first run during Saturday’s final in Montpellier, France, after qualifying third in the semi-finals. 

The 31-year-old showed why he is world champion, putting together a smooth run and landing some huge tricks including a triple whip, 540-flair, and a 360-down whip to bar on the transfer. 

Martin was unable to better his score on the second run, coming off on the landing of his second trick, a 360 backflip down-whip.

America’s Marcus Christopher took out his first world cup with a score of 95.2, with hometown hero Frenchman Anthony Jeanjean taking silver and Great Britain’s Dylan Hessey rounding out the podium.

In the women’s competition,  Olympic bronze medallist Natalya Diehm qualified fifth and laid it all on the line in the finals, but was unable to land her final trick, an alley-oop flair, on both runs.

Diehm eventually finished 11^th  with a score of 62. 

“I knew of and had accepted the consequence prior to the final if I wasn’t able to pull off the alley-oop flair,” Diehm wrote on social media.

“Usually I’d want to put down a safe run first then go harder in the second but I was feeling really good on the bike and had full confidence that I was going to land it.

“Regardless of the result I’m stoked with how I was riding and can’t help but wonder where I might’ve landed on the scoreboard if a run with a crash can still get me a 62.

Despite crashing on her runs, she said she took away some learnings from the competition and was carrying confidence on the bike.

“You have to risk it to get the reward and today it didn’t pay off but the next time it will.”

“My goal this year is to try and add something new into my runs at different events and today I landed my flair tyre grabs in both runs,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, Australia’s next generation of BMX freestyle riders have put the world on notice.

Fifteen-year-old Koby Carroll from the Gold Coast took out Fise’s Amateur Men’s BMX Freestyle competition.

Koby Carroll won the Amateur men's competition. Photo: Supplied

He won the competition in convincing fashion, with a score of 94.67 ahead of China’s Lu Yuhan on 89.83.

In the Amateur women’s competition, fellow Gold Coast rider Alirah Norris took our silver.

See the full result here and watch the men’s finals here, and the women’s final here.

Main photos: Stoop Creative