BMX: Plucky Dutch rider Laura Smulders has beaten Australia’s Caroline Buchanan to record a narrow victory at round three of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup in Papendal, Netherlands.
One of the most technical tracks on the world cup tour, Papendal marked the last major event before the UCI BMX World Championships, which will be held at the end of this month. The world titles also double as the Rio selection event for riders eyeing a position on the Australian Olympic Team.
London Olympian Buchanan entered the third round of the world cup unbeaten following victories at the Argentina and Manchester world cup events, and looked to be in control during the main event in the Netherlands too. However Smulders had other ideas and threw her bike at the line in the dying moments of the race to claim a tight win, 0.04 of a second ahead of the Aussie.
Although victory escaped Buchanan in today’s race, her series lead stays intact. Post race the Rio hopeful expressed pleasure with her form three weeks out from the all-important world championships.
“A win in the time trial [yesterday] and a second place with a photo finish at the line today, I am pleased and walk away injury free. I’m coming into the world championships in 21 days confident,” Buchanan said.
“For the past five years I have come to this track and struggled with the triple jump into the first corner, but this year I managed to have some big wins mentally to jump it in the final and also cope with changeable weather conditions.
“Laura Smulders had home track knowledge and rode that last straight well to get me on the line, but overall I'm happy with my consistency and form.”
High drama unfolded in the men’s final as Frenchman Joris Daudet crashed out from the lead of the race, Australia’s Anthony Dean getting caught out by the incident as he raced up the second straight. Fellow Aussie Sam Willoughby was in the fight for the minor placing’s only to finish fourth, less than a second behind winner and dual Olympic champion Maris Strombergs.
Meanwhile the day ended in the semi finals for London Olympian Lauren Reynolds, both she and USA national champion Alise Post crashing out in separate incidents just metres from each other. On the men’s side of the ledger the Northern Territory’s Matthew Juster also went as far as the semis, but inevitably missed the final by just one place.
Earlier in the day Aussie men’s competitors Bodi Turner, Corey Frieswyk and Tristyn Kronk all endured difficult days in the motos and missed the cut for the quarterfinals, Kronk coming agonisingly close to progressing to the next stage.
Aussie women’s competitor Melinda McLeod suffered a similar fate to Kronk as she too fell shy of qualifying for the the next stage of the competition.
Attention now turns to the BMX World Championships that will be held from May 25-29 in Medellin, Colombia.
Time Trial
Rio Olympic hopeful Caroline Buchanan has taken the first step towards claiming a third straight round win of the 2016 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, winning the curtain raising Time Trial Superfinal in Papendal, Netherlands.
Blustery conditions met competitors for the first day of competition, as those outside the top 16 men and top eight women commenced qualifying rounds, before the top ranked riders contested the time trial.
Buchanan was the sole Australian to race in the time trial, and came into the third round of the world cup as the form rider among the women following victories in Argentina and then Manchester earlier in the season.
While happy to have claimed the win, the result was somewhat unexpected for Buchanan, who was unsure her time would be good enough to knock USA national champion Alise Post out of first place.
“No not at all,” Buchanan told reporters when asked if she was aware of how fast she was going throughout her time trial.
“It may look easy out there, but it’s really tough with the wind and I knew Alise would be hard to beat. When I came up short on that triple [jump] I thought it was all over.
“I kept going to the line and there were a few more mistakes but I looked up and had the win, so it’s good.”
Earlier in the day fellow Australian women Lauren Reynolds and Melinda McLeod both took part in the qualification rounds to finish second and eleventh respectively. Both will now join Buchanan in tomorrow’s main event.
Meanwhile Australia had six out of nine men qualify for tomorrow’s main event. London Olympic silver medallist Sam Willoughby led the charge as he finished second to Dutch world champion Niek Kimmann, while fellow Aussie and Rio aspirant Bodi Turner ended the day third quickest.
Other Australian men also progressing to the next stage of the competition are Matthew Juster, Tristyn Kronk, Anthony Dean and Corey Frieswyk.
The action in Papendal continues with the main event tonight at 9pm (AEST) with the finals set down for just after midnight.
BMX Australia