Saya Sakakibara Triumphs Over Adversity to Win BMX Gold for Australia and Her Brother

 

Kai Witnesses His Sister's Victory by Seven Tenths of a Second

The journey to victory was not easy for Saya Sakakibara. The trauma of her brother’s BMX accident haunted her for months before the Tokyo Games. Her own crash at those Games shattered her dreams and left her hospitalized. Another accident a year later triggered lingering concussion symptoms.

Despite these challenges, Saya nearly gave up but chose to persevere. She rebuilt her confidence, pushed through her fears, and trained relentlessly. Just three days before the competition in Paris, she tested positive for Covid-19, another setback that could have ended her Olympic dreams.

"Initially, my heart sank. I couldn’t believe it. This was supposed to be my Olympics," she said.

Yet, Paris became her Games. On a lively Friday evening at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines stadium, the 24-year-old claimed gold in the women’s BMX racing event.

While rest and medication helped her recover from the virus, the initial dismay lingered. “Your mind goes to the worst-case scenario, thinking you’ll miss the event. But I still had time on my side.”

On Friday, the clock was her ally. Racing four times around the course, with a steep start, bumpy straights, and banked corners, she dominated each race. In the final run, she outpaced the second-placed Manon Veenstra from the Netherlands by seven tenths of a second.

From adversity emerged triumph and gratitude. Tears glistened on her cheeks as she celebrated her victory, reflecting on her journey since Tokyo and her brother Kai’s accident.

Saya’s brother, Kai, a promising BMX racer, suffered a severe brain injury while racing in 2020. Her family has supported his slow recovery since.

“Those moments made me dig deep and reconnect with BMX,” she said.

In front of her family and Kai, Saya’s triumph followed a notable performance by French riders in the same BMX arena. Her boyfriend, Romain Mahieu, who won the men’s bronze, expressed his joy for her victory.

“I’m happier for her than for myself. She almost gave up a few years ago, and now she’s an Olympic champion,” he said.

Saya’s coach, Luke Madill, noted her significant progress in recent months, overcoming fears triggered by past injuries.

“If conditions aren’t perfect, it can affect her, and we have to reset. But in the last few weeks, I’ve seen remarkable progress. I knew we were onto something special,” he said.

Saya’s biggest fear became not meeting her own expectations. “I knew I was the fastest rider here. I just had to commit and believe in myself. The evidence was there,” she said.

After several near misses at major championships, Saya wondered if she was cut out for it. “I was worried I’d never get those big wins. I just wanted to be proud of my performance, and I definitely achieved that.”

Now, she embraces the setbacks as part of her journey. “I wanted that fairytale ending in Tokyo. Not getting it was heartbreaking, but it was an experience I needed.”

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How Do You Die When You’re Buried Alive?

A fantastic story published in Inverse

Beatrix Kiddo emerged with just a few bloody knuckles after punching her way out of her own grave in Kill Bill 2. That degree of strength and perseverance, though useful six feet under, unfortunately exists solely in the realm of vengeful Tarantino heroines. The run-of-the-mill vivisepulture victim dies, but the process of slipping the mortal coil isn’t as bad as you might think.

Imagining how a person succumbs to death when they’re buried alive has provided fodder for depraved imaginations throughout the centuries. Poe, the OG sicko, wrote The Premature Burial during the height of the 19th-century cholera epidemic, which birthed a general phobia of being buried alive. In response, “safety coffins,” equipped with little bells for the mistakenly buried to alert the living, rose in popularity. While gravedigger error has been greatly reduced since then, our taphephobia has not, thanks in part to our morbid fascination with how premature burial actually kills us. In the spirit of Halloween, Inverse dug into three live burial scenarios.

Buried in a Coffin

In the classic buried alive scenario, asphyxiation is most likely to be the cause of death. The trick to slowing down the suffocation process is taking slow and shallow breaths, but that won’t be easy once you start to panic. Conserving the air you haven’t displaced with your body is key. On average, a person’s volume is66 L, and the average casket holds 886 L: The leftover 820 L of air, 164 L of which is oxygen, is yours to ration.

If, despite being pretty stressed out, the grounded party manages to breathe like an average resting adult, their body will convert oxygen at a rate of about 550 Lper day day, or 23 L an hour. That means someone in a coffin has seven hours to make a move.

Of course, the next move is likely no move at all, because there really isn’t any escape. As carbon dioxide replaces the last sips of life-bringing oxygen, blackout and coma ensue. The heart stop beatings not too long after.

Just Plain Buried

Maybe your murderers are in a rush. Or maybe they’re just cheap. Tossing a body into a grave without a coffin still counts as being buried alive. Assuming you’re in a pit meant for a funeral — six feet deep and coffin-sized — you’ll be buried with about 2,775 L of soil on top of you — a sweet 3697 lbs of dirt.

Unless all of the soil is replaced at once, the victim is unlikely to break any bones as the grave is refilled. What will happen is that the weight of the dirt will slowly constrict the chest, making it harder to breathe. As things start to go fuzzy — oxygen is in short supply — the mouth and nostrils will fill with soil, making breathing the air available between particulates impossible.

Avalanche

Because hypothermia is a serious issue, few avalanche victims survive past 25 minutes.

Brain damage sets in about 10 minutes after snow encompasses the body so thinking clearly in an avalanche situation is nigh impossible — and that doesn’t even matter much because as extremities freeze they become unresponsive. Avalanche beacons and teamwork really are the only way out. It’s only a matter of minutes until consciousness slips away. Brain activity soon follows.

Photos via https://www.flickr.com/photos/hodgers/ and http://theukuleleblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/kill-bill-volume-2-2004.html

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