Shanaze Reade on Dave Mirra: He always pushed the bar

British BMX star Shanaze Reade says Dave Mirra was "always pushing the bar" of the sport.

She's been paying tribute to the 41-year-old American, whose body was found on Thursday with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

"He was just so way ahead of his time that every X Games he came out and won he did it with absolute style," she tells Newsbeat.

She tweeted that she grew up watching him at the X Games.

Shanaze says Dave Mirra was a major influence on her as a child.

"I started BMX when I was 10, so I'd put some bricks out with some ramps and try and do some tricks - obviously nothing to the level that he did.

"And the game that he brought out, the Dave Mirra freestyle game, he was just a big part of my childhood growing up."

Dave Mirra won 14 golds at the X Games - only Shaun White has won more.

"I was talking to Jamie Bestwick once - he's a legend himself and competed against Dave. He was saying he'd often go around Dave's house and Angelina Jolie would walk in.

"But he was such an approachable guy and such a nice person that I guess that's why he's had such a big fanbase and was so well-liked."

Shanaze Reade represented Great Britain at the Olympics in 2008 and 2012

Shanaze says she doesn't have one single memory of Dave.

"It was just like every X Games he would come out and do a trick that was so way advanced that only people are doing [it] now," she remembers.

"He's been around for so many years that so many people know who he is - not even just in the sport of BMX, but on the outside he's become a household name all around the world.

"I think the news is going to hit a lot of people quite hard."

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