Plans are formulated months in advance. Races circled in the calendar. Training regimes locked in.

2020 has not been a year for the highly organised.

With a pandemic wreaking havoc on global sport, some athletes don't know when their next training session will be, let alone their next competition.

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For Sakakibara, this year has seen a carefully charted path to the Tokyo Olympics thrown out the window, the new route yet to be mapped.

Initially, the 21-year-old struggled to cope with the uncertainty.

"I didn't know what to do," Sakakibara said. "Having a major event that I'd been working up to, for that to go from four months away to fifteen was a big jump.

"But even with all the shit going on, a lot of people were going through harder times than me."

Whereas Sakakibara was originally thrown off by the uncertainty that lingered throughout the sporting shutdown, she soon found a way to manage it.

With an acceptance she could not plan her programs around upcoming races, the Helensburgh athlete decided to find new goals to focus on.

Each week at training she would target a new skill or technique, Sakakibara meticulous in her planning.

"It's still a learning process for me. Just not doing the thing that you do, I like planning. Planning for a race, starting six months out and focusing on this, then using that to prepare us for the next block.

"We normally don't get this time off between races. So it's been good to focus on specific areas and make some good gains.

"It's just been focusing on understanding why I'm doing it and why I'm waking up every day, why I'm going to the gym or doing a certain session, it makes it so much easier. Rather than just saying 'I'm training for the Olympics', that's still so long away, how does today affect that?

"This allows me to be clear on the true objectives and break it down day by day."

Sakakibara has spent the past two months in Queensland, having travelled north for a training camp before premier Annastacia Palaszczuk slammed the border shut.

Having already committed to competing in the Queensland BMX Championships, the 21-year-old decided to remain on the Gold Coast to prepare for the event.

There, Sakakibara reaped the rewards of her focus throughout the shutdown, taking out the competition.

"We targeted the Queensland Championships because there's nothing really else that's on," she said.

"They recently cancelled the last World Cup that was going to be held in the USA, that was the last race of the year.

"At the start, I enjoyed the off-season training. We worked on a broad spectrum of things, lots of strength, a bit of riding, nothing too specific.

"Even though Queensland states isn't a big race, a few months ago we decided to target it as if it's a World Cup. We did all the training and tapering, everything preparation-wise was funnelled into the race. It was good to have six weeks targeted towards it.

"It was good to see where I was at and the training working."

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Sakakibara's pursuit of Olympic gold was rocked earlier this year when older brother Kai was involved in a serious crash in February.

Racing at the World Cup event in Bathurst, the 24-year-old hit the ground hard in a sickening incident.

It was one that saw Sakakibara placed in an induced coma, doctors fearing he may never wake up.

Such is the nature of a traumatic brain injury, those same doctors were unable to give the family a firm outline of what the recovery process will look like.

"Since day one, no one's told us what is going to happen, how long he'll be in the hospital for," Saya said. "With a brain injury, we were always told every patient is different, we don't know what's going to happen. It's so patient to patient.

"We just know it's a long process. The way he's progressing every day, there's no sign of slowing down just yet. That gives us hope, but also anything can happen. We're just taking the small wins as they come and hoping for the best."

Saya initially spent the first three weeks by her brother's side in Canberra, before making the decision to return home to focus on her Olympic aspirations.

Kai has since moved to Sydney, where he spends five days a week at Liverpool Hospital's Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit.

His progress has been steady but significant, the athlete now able to speak and walk short distances with assistance as he increases muscle function.

Sakakibara still has limited movement in the right side of his body, the result of damage to the left side of his brain.

Working with a team of physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists, Kai has impressed with his commitment to rehab.

Having spent such a long period away from her brother, Saya has missed the developments Kai has been making.

That progress became clear in a recent FaceTime call with her brother.

"He's made a tremendous improvement from where he was," Saya said. "He's made huge gains since I've last seen him, I haven't seen him for two months.

"Talking to him the last few months, you can really pick up a few things he says or does or his facial expressions. Those little things that you think 'wow, that's so much better than before'. It's closer to what Kai used to do before he crashed.

"It's good to see all that progress, and it's just us understanding there's still such a long way to go. It's been seven months, but also early days in the grand scheme of things.

"It's been good to be able to follow his journey and it should be good to come home and spend some time with him again."

The siblings have always been close, they grew up training alongside each other and have spent early adulthood traveling the world racing on the elite BMX circuit.

Throughout that time they have worked together and pushed each other to pursue their goals.

While Saya's focus remains on her career, Kai's has shifted to his long-term recovery.

Despite the differing challenges, the siblings continue to drive each other to achieve their goals.

"Our sibling dynamic, the way our relationship is, our relationship was always like that. It's not like we were in a team where we were competing together, we were in separate competitions, he was in the mens, I was in the womens.

"We were both on separate journeys but still supporting each other. It's still the same now. He's going through a different direction and I'm still on the same course.

"We're still supporting each other. He loves to be involved in the decision making, the training, any queries I have and I love watching him get better.

"The way we are hasn't changed. We still get to push each other along in our journeys."

While still on the journey to an Olympics in the country she spent seven years of her childhood living in, the exact path to Tokyo remains unclear.

The Australian Championships that were set to be held in December have already been cancelled. It is hoped the international circuit will restart in March.

Much uncertainty, however, remains over the status of the Olympics.

It remains a source of regular frustration for the highly-organised athlete.

"It's all still up in the air with the calendar. By this time we normally know the races for next year, the calendar's out and we know the venues.

"Now we hear it might be March, it's looking like there might be an Olympics. I love to plan, so it's hard not knowing exactly what's going to happen."

But, through an eventful and turbulent year, Sakakibara has also learnt the skills needed to cope with whatever pops up throughout the next phase of her career.

"Knowing I'm still one of the younger riders in the field, I feel like there's a lot of potential for me to improve within the next 12 months,'' she said.

"I'm taking this year as an opportunity to just keep going and improving."