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Cape BMX star on the Fast Track

Avery Jones competes in World Championship

By CJ HADDAD 5 min read
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Avery Jones, 14, tested her mettle at the 2023 UCI Cycling BMX World Championship in Glasgow, Scotland last week, competing among 60 others in the 15-year-old girls bracket. The 10-day competition was part of the biggest cycling event in world history. PROVIDED
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One of the top youth BMX riders in the world calls Cape Coral home, and most recently, showed she belongs with the best of the best on an international stage.

Avery Jones, 14, tested her mettle at the 2023 UCI Cycling BMX World Championship in Glasgow, Scotland last week, competing among 60 others in the 15-year-old girls bracket. The 10-day competition was part of the biggest cycling event in world history.

Avery raced two different styles of bicycles in Scotland, known as cruiser and 20-inch. She was one of four girls from the United States to race for Team USA and advanced to the semi-finals on both bicycles, and was just one lap away from a world title in both. She finished ranked ninth in the world on her cruiser and 13th in the world on her 20-inch, defeating numerous world-ranked riders in the process representing Great Britain, Netherlands, France, Japan, Australia, and various other countries.

“It was really exciting,” Avery said of taking part of such a large event with top competition. “It was a really great opportunity to represent my country.

“The experience I had there, with all the other riders, too, competing at that level, (there are) a lot of emotions. I impressed myself with jumping, and manually just my skill, and being mentally ready for everything.”

Avery is no stranger to the track, and has been racing since she was 8. She said she started her athletic endeavors with gymnastics and ice skating, but it was when her brothers started participating in BMX where she picked up the sport and has never looked back.

“I just kept watching and told my dad I wanted to race,” Avery said. “I got put into the boy’s class and ended up beating all of them, which of course felt good.

“I’m competitive, and I like to win. I always like a good challenge. It’s good to see what you can do against fast riders, and makes you feel good when you win against them.”

Cape Coral BMX serves as Avery’s home track. Her accolades include being a seven-time Florida State Champion, and she is currently ranked No. 2 in the U.S. for her age. She also rides for the No. 1 ranked BMX team in the country; J&R Bicycles. She will be traveling to Louisville, Kentucky in September and Rock Hill, South Carolina in October for national racing before finishing up the year in Tulsa, Oklahoma for the USA BMX National Championship.

This year, Avery was the youngest-ever competitor in the Florida State Series Pro-Am Racing Series at 14, where she finished the season ranked 4th out of more than 25 riders, some being twice her age.

While she’s already accomplished a lot in a short time, her aspirations are admirable.

“My dream is to go to the Olympics, so I just keep coming back to see how much more I can progress myself,” Avery said. “With the younger girls, too, I like riding with them and coaching them and being with and making friends from all over the United States, and now, in different countries.”

Avery’s father, Nick Jones, had a front-row seat to his daughter’s races overseas, as he served as a team manager/assistant for Team USA.

“She’s always been good,” Nick said, adding that things can get overwhelming at times with scheduling and day-to-day life. “Every track or race that we go to, she’s always considered one of the best. So as she’s progressed, at this point, with all of her rankings and success within the United States, it just seemed like this was the next step in her racing and her progression.”

Being competitive nationally is impressive, but taking your talents to a global stage going up against the top riders the world has to offer is another animal.

Avery qualified to race on Team USA back in February at a race in Oldsmar, where she competed against girls from around the country and won the event. Leading up to the race, Avery made frequent trips to Sarasota and Oldsmar to train for the race, as they have similar tracks to that in Scotland. Her coach, Domingos Lammoglia, lives in Orlando and is a current Olympic BMX coach originally from Brazil. Avery puts in roughly three to four hours of work each day perfecting her craft. A home gym was built in the garage, and she’s very much into health and fitness, as well as her diet. Off the track, Avery is an honor roll student, and has started her freshman year of high school taking online courses to accommodate her racing and training schedule.

It seems all of her hard work paid off.

“For her to go (to the World Championships) and be that successful, it just proved to all of us that she belonged and she’s well on her way to accomplishing her goals,” Nick said. “She probably trains harder than any rider I’ve met.”

Naturally, Nick is proud of the way his daughter has carried herself, and the sport has become a catalyst to a strong relationship.

“Yeah, Avery and I are very close going to all of these races together,” Nick said. “On the world stage, when she’s on the track and you hear the announcer announce her name; ‘Avery Jones from the United States’ as she’s racing on the track and wearing a jersey that says ‘USA,’ there’s nothing that can compare to that. It makes you teary-eyed for sure.”

Avery said, “We’ve grown a lot with communication, and it doesn’t just go for him and me, it goes for all the riders. He has individual relationships with each rider.

“But with me, there’s just a lot of emotions built into this sport with my dad.”

Avery will receive the city of Cape Coral’s Community Recognition Award on Aug. 30 from the city manager for making it to the BMX World Championships.