He may not have walked away with the final rose on Angie Kent’s series of The Bachelorette but BMX biker, Matt Whyatt, sure won the hearts of the nation standing up in the face of misogyny to defend women around the world in an iconic showdown with the Noosa mayoral contestant. But after that moment, Whyatt was completely robbed, Kendrick Lamar 2018 triple j Hottest 100 style, of screen time entirely for the producers favouring drama over quality Matt and Angie time.
“I couldn’t believe it! I can’t believe they cut all of my stuff for Jamie’s drama but they just love the drama I suppose. I was too quiet and nice. I’d rather be the quiet and humble guy that didn’t get the 200K followers,” laughs Whyatt.
Even though his journey for love wasn’t meant to be, the show has allowed for Whyatt to focus on his one true love, BMX riding as a veteran to the Australian Nitro Circus team, building a profile for himself and expanding his passion for the sport.
“I’ve been cruising pretty much at the moment, doing my own thing and focusing on my own goals. I’ve just started a personal training course and getting back into the Nitro Circus stuff and focusing on myself,” Whyatt explains. “I’ve been with them for 10 years so I’ll continue to ride with Nitro Circus as long as I can but it’s more after [the stint ends]. I’d love to help people through their injuries and have a bit of qualification behind me. After they’ve done with their physios I would love to get them back up to 100 percent with their training. I’ve been through a lot of injuries and had personal trainers help me so I want to dig into that part of the athletes’ life around injuries when I’m done.”
Injuries have been aplenty in Whyatt’s long and successful career with the Nitro Circus family including 30 dislocations to this shoulder in one year and multiple surgeries. It’s no wonder considering Whyatt pushes himself and the sport to its absolute limit, even pioneering a trick, the Whyatt Riot.
“It’s been a couple of years since the last surgery now but it’s all been worth every injury,” he says.
“It’s pretty awesome especially because we innovated that jump [Whyatt Riot], so ten years ago what we did on the massive jump would have been unbelievable but we’ve pushed it every year since so to look at it and be able to push it the limits year after year and still be at the top of the game and come up with tricks that no one has ever done before is pretty good to look back on. With my trick, I think it’s been six years and no one has done it yet and I’m adding to that still. I don’t think there are limits to the sport.”
To put that into perspective the now 28-year-old was only 17 when he turned pro in BMX, but it was a hell of a lot of work to get to his standard today. The former Geelong boy was doing tail-whips before most kids could ride a bike.
“I lived in Ocean Grove and would catch the bus into Geelong and train it to Melbourne and there was a skate park with foam pits up there. That was every weekend for me pretty much,” Whyatt says.
Now living in Queensland, Whyatt will return back down south as the explosive, high adrenaline action sport, 2020 Nitro Circus World Tour hits Ballarat.
You saw some of his tricks on The Bachelorette red carpet; now see Whyatt take on the ramps at Mars Stadium Ballarat on Saturday 29 February.
Tickets at nitrocircus.com/tour/
Written by Tammy Walters