The stars of MotoGP, motorcycle racing’s equivalent to Formula One, tend to start young – most top riders don a helmet and straddle a little motorbike almost as soon as they can walk. Often, they are inspired by a racing dad or older brother, but eye-catching Japanese rookie star Ai Ogura had an unusual inspiration: his big sister, Karen.
“Well, my sister started earlier than me. She started with a pocket bike when she was three,” Ogura tells CNN Sports. “So in between us, there’s two years’ difference.
“When I was small, I was not interested in MotoGP or other races, I mean, to watch on the TV, so I didn’t have idols like everybody, like Valentino (Rossi) as my idol, or (Casey) Stoner, or (Jorge) Lorenzo, or something like that. So, my sister was the one that I was looking up to.”
Little brother versus big sister
Ogura grew up in Kiyose, a suburb in Tokyo’s commuter belt. His father raced bikes at an amateur level, so he and his family devoted much of their free time to racing.
“Every weekend, me and my sister, and my father, my mother, used to go to the circuit and we were just a normal family,” Ogura says.
Perhaps inevitably, a young Ai began taking to the track himself with sister Karen. “(We raced together) a lot, especially in the pocket bike time. And we were in the same class, and she always beat me. It’s not a good memory for me, but for her, yes,” the now 24-year-old laughs.
(source article)
