Photo courtesy of DeAnn Frederick Draped in an American flag, New Ulm’s Cole Frederick stands atop the podium after winning the boys’ 10-year-old division of the 2017 UCI BMX World Championships in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

ROCK HILL, S.C. — At 10 years old, Cole Frederick can say he’s a world champion.

On July 26, the New Ulm native competed against 115 riders from 26 different countries in the boys’ 10-year-old division at the International Cycling Union (UCI) BMX World Championships in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and took home first place.

The experience was amazing for Cole and his mother, DeAnn Frederick, as he even got to swap jerseys with a competitor from Ecuador after the final race.

“One of the things is, although the kids in the gate may not speak each other’s language, they all speak BMX,” DeAnn said. “That was the biggest thing was seeing how many kids from Colombia and Australia and Brazil and places that you don’t think about coming to the U.S.”

Throughout the numerous rounds, Cole placed first in every one of his races. Even though he was used to competing at national events, he said there was a level of uncertainty involved with racing against kids from all over the world.

“At Worlds, you have to race different people from different countries and you don’t know how fast they are,” he said. “But doing a national [race], you can literally look at your rack and sometimes you can figure out who might make it depending on what happens to them — if they crash or if they get disqualified, which means they move to last place.”

At the 2017 World Championships, Cole won all of his preliminary races to give him a spot in the 1/8ths, where he won again to advance to the quarterfinals.

Because of his success in the preliminary rounds, Cole got the advantage of picking his gate for the later rounds. Cole picked Gate 3, which provides an advantage conducive to his style.

“So on the inside if you go up into the turn, you have the advantage of being able to push up on somebody else that’s on the outside,” DeAnn said. “But people on the outside could push down. It’s whatever your racing style, preference leads you to.”

Cole described his racing style as “ground-to-go,” which means does not spend a ton of time in the air.

“I barely even jump, ’cause jumping can slow you down but it can be faster,” he said. “Sometimes manualing is faster than pumping, so I’ve been working on my manualing so I can get faster.”

Cole got into BMX racing when he was 4 years old, motivated by his older brother, Ty, who had competed in the sport until he broke his arm numerous times.

“I just wanted to chase my brother on the track,” Cole said.

Cole kept at the sport, becoming a regular at national competitions. But when the World Championships returned to the United States for the first time in more than 15 years, Cole took a crack at it, eventually punching his ticket out of a qualifier race in Phoenix.

DeAnn and her husband, Brent, have become dedicated to helping Cole succeed in the sport of BMX, so much so that they travel across the country throughout the year.

So far this year, Cole has raced in Las Vegas and Pittsburgh as well as numerous races in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Florida. Even though adding on the extra miles can be grueling, Cole said he has gotten used to it.

“It just depends where we’re going and what has a good deal,” DeAnn said. “They drove out to Pittsburgh, though, and all the way out to South Carolina.”

The drives can be draining — especially the 20-hour trek to Rock Hill, South Carolina — but as long as Cole has some time to rest, he’ll be fine.

“Unless you have to get there right away — if it’s a couple hours and you have to race exactly that day and right then, then it probably would [be difficult] because my legs would still be asleep and I haven’t felt the track yet,” Cole said.

Cole has gotten used to travel partly because of the family’s regular trips up to Rum River BMX track in Isanti, which is a good 3-hour drive from New Ulm. DeAnn said they make the trip up to Rum River just about every weekend during the winter, giving Cole an ample opportunity to train at an indoor facility.

The year-round travel caused Cole to miss 13 1/2 days this past school year at Jefferson Elementary School in New Ulm. However, DeAnn said they always try to plan their travel around teacher in-service days if at all possible to minimize how much school he will miss.

Cole and his family are hoping all the traveling pays off, as he has his eyes set on someday becoming an Olympic qualifier. But that’s not his main goal.

“The ultimate goal is making it to the Olympics,” he said. “But then my ultimate-ultimate goal is getting the gold medal.”