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Connor Fields: Speaking Reel 2025
Connor Fields
Olympic Gold Medalist and BMX Racing Legend
- The only athlete in history who has both won the Olympics and nearly died while competing at the Olympics
- Teaches audiences how to reach pivotal moments, how to navigate unexpected outcomes, and how to move forward, win or lose, like a champion
- A gifted storyteller who inspires resilience, confidence, and optimism, while offering practical insights to enhance performance in both the professional and personal arenas
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Connor Fields is a three-time Olympian, two-time World Champion, and the first American to win Olympic BMX Gold.
He is also the only Olympic athlete who has both won the Olympics….and nearly died while competing at the Olympics.
As one of the world's all-time greatest BMX racers, Connor has represented the United States 50+ times in 25+ countries. At 17 Connor became the youngest rider to ever podium a BMX World Cup, and was the youngest athlete in his sport at the London 2012 games. However, his racing career was not always marked by triumphs. At the 2021 Tokyo Games, as the number one seed in his semi-final and on pace to defend his gold medal from 2016, Connor went down in one of the worst accidents in Summer Olympic history. Based on previous results, Connor still qualified for the 2021 Olympic BMX final, but instead of competing in that final race, he fought for his life in an ambulance. Connor sustained multiple injuries - broken ribs, a collapsed lung, torn shoulder and bicep ligaments, brain swelling, and the big one, a TBI including four life-threatening brain hemorrhages.
The road to recovery took him through surgery, therapy, and intense physical and cognitive rehabilitation. Connor had to regain the energy to do simple tasks, strengthen short-term memory, relearn vocabulary, and even learn how to speak correctly. He learned firsthand that Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) survivors go through physical, mental, and emotional changes throughout their recovery. Not only did he face the pain of being denied the chance to defend his Gold Medal, but Connor also has no memory of competing in his final Olympics – the moment he trained his entire life for.
In the blink of an eye, his career ended.
Connor realized that, just like in training, life is not about being perfect or getting everything 100% correct. People focus on the last 1% when it’s the 99% that creates champions. It wasn’t the last 1% - a second Olympic Gold - that would make Connor a champion—the 99% of who he already was made him a winner. Connor learned the importance of mental health and having to rebuild yourself when everything goes completely wrong.
After a year of rehabilitation, he was fully recovered and cleared to ride again. Determined not to let his final race define 22 years of riding, he jumped on his bike and rode again on day one to conquer the fear that threatened to keep him off the track. Understandably anxious to hit routine jumps, he took them on and beat the demons that chased him. In his words: “I wanted to go out on my own terms”
Connor found new passions, as the host for PBS’s hit show “Outdoor Nevada” as well as using his story to inspire others around the country. Connor continues to provide commentary for BMX events, including for NBC Olympic broadcasts. He also remains involved in his sport, as a board member of USA Cycling, USABMX, and occasionally rides and coaches BMX, with no passion for his sport lost to the worst of Olympic scenarios
The Today Show, Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair Magazine, among others, have featured his story. He was part of the Polo Ralph Lauren Sport campaign, has been a guest at the White House, and was nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award.
In his presentations, Connor opens the curtains to the rarely seen experience of winning sport's most fantastic prize and overcoming extreme adversity. Through authentic and engaging storytelling, Connor provides real-world strategies for peak performance. He directs his audience to identify their own Gold Medal Moment, and provides immediately applicable techniques to be prepared when that moment arrives. He openly shares his journey of recovery and self-discovery with audiences inspiring resiliency and motivating audiences toward tremendous success. Through authentic and engaging storytelling, Connor provides real-world strategies for peak performance, inspires resiliency, and motivates audiences to move forward after any outcome.
Speaker Video
Connor Fields: The Ride - My Story
Now what?: Handling challenges life throws at you and moving forward like a Gold Medalist each time.
In his keynote, “Now What?” Connor Fields touches on challenges that can cause self-doubt in life and work, equipping you with the tools to overcome them. This incredible keynote presentation delves into the crucial power of resilience, overcoming failures, unwavering determination, and perspective, empowering you to face challenges head-on. With compelling stories and hard-earned insights, Connor empowers attendees to be ready to answer the question “Now What?” every time.
KEY LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- Clear Goal Setting Strategies: Once you know what you want to achieve, how do you get there? Connor outlines step-by-step processes to increase the likelihood of reaching your goals.
- Lean Into Resilience: After a failure, what do you do to get better? Connor shares what he learned from failing at the highest level: how to correct mistakes and get them right the next time around.
- Sustain Success: Now that you have won, how do you stay at the top? Be ready to sustain success with insights from someone who stayed in the top 5 World Rankings for over a decade.
- Keep Failure in Perspective: No one wants to fail, but if you are here, you have a chance to fix it. Nearly losing your life and having the world’s attention to see if you would survive changes the way you look at failure. Be able to keep failure in perspective and stay optimistic about the future.
Gold Medal Moments: Reach Your Big Moments, and Be Ready When You Do. Olympic Secrets to Peak Performance
In “Gold Medal Moments,” Connor Fields shares what he learned throughout his 3 Olympic cycles and how those lessons can be applied daily. From choking at his first games, winning sports greatest prize at his second, and nearly losing his life at his third and losing the chance to go to four Olympics, he experienced the entire range of outcomes. Each time, learning different lessons about preparation, how to succeed despite setbacks, and failing with grace. Through captivating stories and actionable takeaways, attendees will acquire powerful tools and frameworks designed to drive success. Whether you’re eager to enhance your performance in the business world or seeking a spark of motivation, this keynote is essential for anyone ready to think and perform like an Olympic Champion in their professional pursuits. Get to your Gold Medal moment, and seize it!
KEY LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- Intentional Preparation: Learn how to maximize your preparation to be ready for the big moment when it arrives. Lean into a high-performance mindset that embraces discipline, focus, and resilience.
- Implement Proven Olympic Strategies: Discover the secret frameworks and techniques used by Olympic athletes that can be applied to enhance performance. When you have 1 day every 4 years that counts, you better get it right. Learn how to “peak” the same way Olympians speakers do.
- Handle the Moment: Discover is the secret Olympic athletes and gold medalists use to stay calm in big moments and maximize your chances of success.
Above all, more than anything, success is made up of these 3 ingredients that Connor goes into:
Setting Goals
In this keynote as an Olympic motivational speaker, Connor explains the steps that propelled him to become a World Cup winner and one-time Olympic gold medalist. What started as a crazy goal written on the wall at his parent's house at 15 turned into a mission. However, the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles you will face.
Connor underlines the crucial need for setting precise, ambitious goals and the power of making every decision count toward overcoming what may seem like insurmountable obstacles. Through raw and honest stories, Connor opens up about his own struggles, the times he wanted to give up, and shares how he was able to move forward each time with lessons that can be immediately applied to whatever goal the listener sets.
Every choice, no matter how small, can impact our path to success. As a keynote speaker, Connor shares his approach to goal-setting and decision-making.
Learn From Your Mistakes
What happens when you do everything right and prepare as much as possible, but it doesn't work out? How do you believe you can get it right next time? This is a challenge in both sports and in life. Olympic speakers have seen extreme adversity and can help you learn how to work through it at your event. How do you have the courage to try again? The first thing to do is look in the mirror and figure out why you did not succeed. That is hard to do, and it can hurt, but it is necessary if you want to be the best you can be.
This introspection was crucial and helped Connor establish best practices to prime for peak performance the next chance he got. Connor shares these lessons to prepare you for your Gold Medal Moment when it arrives.
Manage The Pressure
The whole country is counting on you…hundreds of millions of people are watching…your entire career comes down to this moment…will you become an Olympic gold medalist and one of the Olympic champions? The intensity of jumping a massively long jump, competing in a World Cup, or an Olympic final is unmatched, yet the essence of pressure remains constant across all scenarios - it doesn't matter if you're on the Olympic starting line or preparing for a presentation at your next conference. If it is important to you, you will feel the pressure.
Connor has developed world-record holder proven strategies to manage the pressure of needing to succeed in that make-or-break moment, strategies born from moments when the stakes couldn't be higher. Connor explains how they can be adapted to navigate the pressures in your own life, in both work and personal life. He can help you turn seemingly daunting challenges into opportunities for growth and achievement.
