Darren Hicks

‘I Just Felt Like Me Again’  

Darren Hicks’ passion has long been behind the handlebars of a bike.  

“It’s just been the only sport that I ever wanted to do,” he said.  

“I got my first BMX racing bike at 10, started racing pretty soon after and raced until I was 29 and had my accident.” 

The motor vehicle accident caused Hicks severe leg and neck trauma, leading to his right leg being amputated above the knee. His left leg was fractured and a vertebra was so severely broken it required a surgical fixation. 

His BMX dreams were over. 

“I had surgery on my C2 vertebra, went to rehab hospital, spent just over two weeks in that rehab hospital,” Hicks said. 

“Then they essentially said, ‘go home and you can be an outpatient’.” 

Hicks eventually found his way back onto a bike and, in in the process, finding a new purpose and rediscovering an important part of himself.  

“I’ve overcome the hardest parts of what I’m going to do here, the next thing that brings me back to being me is riding a bike,” Hicks said. 

“I didn’t feel special or weird or different I just felt like me again and that was probably the most powerful part of it.” 

In 2017, Hicks won his first national title. Later that year, he made his first national squad and as they say, the rest is history.  

Hicks made his Paralympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games, where he won silver on the track and gold in the road C2 time trial.  

“(At) my very first international win, I beat somebody that had pretty much been unbeatable for quite a while,” he said. 

“All of a sudden I had quite a few other people that just wanted to chat to me, I’ll never forget that moment when I realised I was someone.” 

He wasn’t just someone, he was someone who finally felt – at home. 

“Belonging, that’s the only way I can describe it,” Hicks said. 

“I just finally found that place to belong.”