BMX Ace Daniel Sandoval on Riding to Victory Through the Pain

Daniel Sandoval has spent two decades near the top of action sports, and this year he helped deliver one of the wildest finishes in X Games League history, riding through injuries doctors told him to sit out and sealing his team's championship in the final minutes. In this conversation he talks about growing up in Corona, California, discovering BMX at ten years old, and building a career that took him from amateur contests to sponsorships with Red Bull and now Monster Energy. He opens up about losing his father as a teenager and finding a photo after his death that revealed his dad had once ridden bikes himself, a moment that changed how he thinks about his own path in the sport.

In this conversation with Kavitha Davidson he talks about fatherhood, the physical toll of two decades of competition, and what it means to be one of BMX's veterans as a new generation of riders comes up behind him. Daniel reflects on the mental side of competing through pain, the shift from individual competition to a team format this year, and where he sees the sport heading as it competes for attention with the Olympics and social media. It's a candid look at what keeps an athlete going long after the easy years are behind him.

Host: Kavitha A. Davison | Producer & Writer: Paroma Chakravarty I Executive Producer: Saadia Khan | Research & Script: Juan Sebastian Camacho| Sound Designer & Editor: Paroma Chakravarty I Sportly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art Graphic Designer: Sarah DiMichele

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