Kai Sakakibara is someone who has always been in a hurry. He had been chasing the adrenaline-filled thrill of BMX racing from the age of four. In 2020, Kai was on a fast-track path towards representing Australia at the Tokyo Olympic Games, a hugely symbolic goal given he and his sister, Olympic champion Saya, had grown up in Japan and represented the country in his first ever World Championships as a junior. Life can sometimes come at you even faster than you think, though. On February 8, 2020, the lives of the Sakakibara family changed forever. At the Bathurst leg of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, on what was Kai's favourite track, the then 23-year-old Olympic hopeful crashed catastrophically. Kai would spend the next two months in a coma and be in hospital for a total of eight months. The results of that accident, a debilitating brain injury, meant that life would never be the same again. His family were just lucky that he was alive — which at times during the immediate aftermath of the crash was not always a given. Nevertheless, such a devastating incident ensured that Kai's dream of competing at an Olympics was over. But just because that door closed, it didn't mean Kai would stop pushing himself. That's just not in his make up. So, in keeping with his thirst for success, Kai took the brave step back onto a bike. And now, just a shade over five years since being left fighting for his life on a BMX track, Kai has been crowned as an Australian cycling champion — this time in the velodrome. National champion first, next step LA "I didn't go to the race with any expectations," Kai tells ABC Sport from his home on the Gold Coast, just over a week on from his gold medal winning performance at the Anna Meares Velodrome. "I just wanted to go out there and peddle as hard as I can and just see where that took me. "And I was lucky because I got the win. "So I was like, 'OK, if I can get the win now, then what can I do in six months or a year?' "I'm excited to see where I where I go with it." Luck has nothing to do with it. Getting back on the bike after such a hideous injury was, Kai acknowledges, not easy — and something he still has to manage. Kai's tentative steps back onto two wheels began a full year on from his accident in the form of tricycles, before be progressed back onto a BMX bike. This extreme manifestation of the "getting back on the horse" idiom was not seamless. "Definitely," Kai says when asked if he had to deal with nerves. "And there still is. Definitely. "But I've realised that's just the way it is, with the way I've fallen and the injury that I sustained, it's always gunna be scary. "Once I'm going, that was fine, but once I slowed down … in the velodrome, there's no brakes on the bikes … so that was really scary. When I slowed down, I needed somebody to stop me. "But overall, I think I managed it pretty well and I can only see it getting better from here." After a short experiment in rowing, a sport Kai says was great but "not quite the right fit", Kai returned to his first love of riding bikes — and riding them fast. Kai decided to have his disability graded by the International Paralympic Committee and, just a few days out from the nationals, received news that he had been classified as a C1 athlete. A C1 classification means a rider can compete using a standard bicycle but their impairment means they cannot compete in able-bodied competitions, with C1 indicating a "severe" level of impairment relating to limb function. Entering the 1,000m time trial, Kai admitted to being "super nervous" heading into the event, not only because it was his first ever race on a velodrome, but it was his first bike race in over five years. Needless to say, the last time he had strapped on a race number was the worst day in his life. That was far from the case this time around. "It's been a long time since I've kind of felt that feeling," Kai said. "Getting on the velodrome, it's like a dream come true. "I obviously missed BMX but eventually, one day, I'd like to go to the Paralympics for the velodrome." 'He wants to be the first to everything' Kai's story represents a process of recovery that is impossible to understate. As horrendous as his accident was, as brutal as the outcome, Kai and the entire Sakakibara family united around the common goal of seeing him succeed. Little sister Saya used the impossible torment of seeing her stricken older brother — her hero, her inspiration to ride a BMX at all — as fuel for her fight to become a two-time World Cup winner and to win an astonishing Olympic gold in Paris. Saya achieved that gold medal with as dominant display of riding the sport has ever seen at a Games, emulating the dreams she and her brother shared in one of the most emotional nights the French capital saw during that heady fortnight of sporting excellence. While celebrating on the track at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines BMX stadium, as tears rolled down Saya's cheeks, Kai simply beamed his indomitable grin. Saya has repeatedly credited her brother's "no guilt, no jealousy" support as the reason she has been able to succeed despite his accident. And although she was competing in the United States and missed out seeing Kai's track debut live, he said he knew his sister was proud of him — with a caveat that speaks volumes about how driven this astonishing pair of siblings are. "I think she would have been exceptionally proud," Kai says. "But she was already thinking, 'OK, what's next?'" This irresistible drive is nothing new. Kai's father, Martin Ward, sat alongside Kai during our interview, helping whenever Kai needed time to compose his thoughts and articulate his answer, an ongoing impact of the brain injury he acquired in his crash. He recalled that even from an early age, Kai was showing signs that he was only ever interested in one thing: Being first. "When he was three years old I remember waking him up in his room, it was about 7:00 in the morning," Martin says. "He took one look at my face and he burst into tears. "And I think it's because he wanted to be first up. "You know kids say, 'I'll race you to this, that and the other', right? He still does that now. "We went to Sydney [last week] and he did a speech to [Youngcare charity fundraiser event] Ribs and Red. "We get back and we're at the airport in Brisbane and we have to go out through the chute, through the swinging doors, and I look over he's looking at me, and then he's running! "That was just last week! He's still doing it." 'His drive, drives everyone else' It was an attitude that Kai took to his lengthy and ongoing recovery, too. "A few months into his rehab, when he was learning to speak again he had the speech therapist in his room on the ward," Martin says. "And the physiotherapist came up because he was late for physiotherapy and the speech therapist said 'right. OK Kai', Maybe it was halfway through an exercise, 'let's sort of stop here,' and Kai said 'no, do it properly'. "It was just like that all the way through. "He's just been like that ever since he was born. "Even after the accident, even his therapy and his rehabilitation, the way he approached that and his drive drives everybody else to go with him, so you can't do anything else but work there and support him. "When he was in the recovery or in the brain injury ward, his termination and focus made the therapist focus even more on him, so he got more benefit. "You know, we're here today because of his drive. Martin tells ABC Sport that he's "really happy" to see Kai back on his bike, despite the heartache of the last few years. "You know, you can't wrap your kids up in cotton wool," he says, sagely. "This is what he wants to do, this is what he wanted to do, and he's so happy for doing it and succeeding. "It's amazing. We're all behind him." Martin admits that there were times that it had been hard, but his own fears and anxieties have been overridden by the pride he has in how his son has responded to this set back. "It's been incredible being with him over these past five years," he says. "Yes there is that, a huge element of that [it being hard], but I think, when your kids fall over, they graze their knees, so you pick them up, right? "This is just a slightly bigger version of that. "People say 'you're so brave,' but no, there's there's no choice here. You just pick them up and brush them off, right?" Now, Kai is looking forward again, another path that had once seemed closed wide open. A story that had been gripped by tragedy has taken another new slant. The Paralympics in LA are just three years away. A home Games just up the road in Brisbane, just seven. And Kai being Kai, you'd simply never back against him.