CYCLING-BMX: A pair of contrasting days over the weekend has Rio Olympian Anthony Dean standing tall during the sixth round of the 2018 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup podium in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium.
After falling from his bike yesterday during the quarter-finals of round five, Dean was out to redeem himself and did so magnificently finding third place in the finals of round six behind World Cup leader Niek Kinmann and Joris Daudet.
Returning from injury surrounding muscle damage in his quad, Dean has been working tirelessly in his San Diego home and is pleased to see that his plans with his coach Wade Bootes are paying off.
“Anthony’s performance today was on task, he had clear intent and delivered to the plan,” Bootes said.
“Anthony has demonstrated today that he is on track and will continue to work hard and focus on the key elements to be the best rider [at the 2018 UCI BMX World Championships] on June 9.”
Joining Dean in the men’s final was New South Welshman, Kai Sakakibara who followed close behind the Olympian to finish in fourth place in a heavily contested race. Sakakibara now sits eighth on the overall standings while Dean has moved into 14th position.
The other main event of the day was the elite women’s final where Sakakibara’s sibling and rising star Saya, has been a hot favourite throughout the whole world cup series. Unfortunately for Saya, it wasn’t to be this weekend missing the mark on both days but the 18-year old still sits third on the overall standings of the World Cup.
National Team Manager and 2008 Olympian Luke Madill was impressed with how the team regrouped after a testing previous day.
“We had a little bit of luck fall our way today and Anthony hung in there to prove that he is podium potential,
“Unfortunately Saya had some bad luck crashing out and some of our riders were too sore to ride but all in all there are a lot of things we can take away from our time here at Zolder,” Madill said.
With two weekends of back-to-back world cup racing over, the Australian team now set their sights on the 2018 UCI BMX World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan on June 5-9. The biggest event on the international BMX calendar this year will have all riders battling it out for the top spot.
The full day of World Cup racing in Belgium can be watched HERE
The conclusion of the World Cup series will make its final weekend stand at Santiago Del Estero, Argentina on September 29-30.
The full list of results and standing can be found HEREBMX Australia
