By Matthew Raymer
Olympic BMX Racing had its first-ever prime-time broadcast slot (local time) as Day One qualifying rounds kicked off at 8 PM Paris time on Thursday night.
The covered (but not enclosed) “Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines” BMX Stadium put the sport under the lights for the first time (all previous Olympics were outdoors with an afternoon start time).
The facility was awash in shades of purple, a tip-of-the-beret to the Iris, France’s national flower.
And much like the 2022 World Championships in Nantes, the French fans showed up in force to cheer on their countrymen.
With the venue lighting amped-up for the TV cameras, and the typical top-shelf Olympic production values (including a cable-cam!), race action was set to provide some stunning and visually compelling drama.
All those custom frame and helmet paint jobs that were displayed on athletes’ social media looked fantastic under the bright lights.
UCI decided to tweak the Day One qualifying rounds to ensure full gates for every lap and incentivize every rider to push to the finish line.
Instead of four heats of six racers like previous Olympic quarterfinals, they opted for three gates of eight, with scrambled start lists for all three runs.
This made every lap time extra-critical for gate pick in the next scrambled heat.
The scrambled heats gave the fans a chance to size up different head-to-head matchups they might see in the finals.
Top four overall in each of the three heats (12 total racers) went directly to the semi-finals.
Racers ranked 13-20 overall went to the LCQ. Riders ranked 21-24 overall were eliminated.
LCQ was one lap, with the top four racers going to semi-finals. The bottom-four were eliminated.
These were definitely some of the most exciting laps of the night – nobody playing it safe or holding position, instead putting it all on the line to move on to Day Two.
Overall the track design seemed to flow well and definitely provided some great racing. Plenty of passing opportunities, particularly the last straight which required 100% concentration or you could lose (or gain) one or two places.
The racers seemed to be playing nice on Day One – just a few crashes, but Day Two will definitely be a different story. Kristens Krigers (LAT) went down in turn two and did not start in Run Three.
Carlos Ramirez was in a transfer position in the LCQ, but he got squeezed out of the last turn and went down hard. He was carried off the track but was sitting up and gave the crowd a hand tap to his heart on the way out.
I thought that the women might have some trouble cutting-over to the right out of turn one to line up for their second straight section.
But it did not seem to be too much of an issue, except for local fan-favorite Axelle Etienne. She got caught in the gap between the men’s and women’s section and went down (but still made her way to the semi-finals).
The track design also provided some interesting choices as you could watch two or three riders approach an obstacle, and some would manual, some would jump, and then we could watch who made the right choice.
There was some talk on social media that the track was relatively short, but the broadcast stated it was 400M, just like Tokyo. Overall the races seemed to flow well, and Day One delivered a show that was definitely ready for prime time.
Day Two semi-finals should dial up the action even more as everyone tries to put themselves into the finals.
On to the highlights of the race action.
WOMEN
On the women’s side, there were three 1-1-1 scores – Saya Sakakibara, Alise Willoughby, and Bethany Shriever. Sakakibara clocked the fastest lap time – 34.376, but Shriever wasn’t too-far-off that with a 34.421. Willoughby’s best lap was 35.033.
Shriever picked gate 6 every round and would use the long flat section on the first straight to wind up and make her move to the front. Interesting strategy and curious to see if she will make that same gate pick in the semi-finals.
Mariana Pajon struggled, and had to line up for the LCQ, where she won by a healthy margin. Her lap time of 36.015 shows that she has a heavy lift in the semi-finals, but never count out the Queen.
MEN
On the men’s side, there were no 1-1-1 scores, but the French trio of Sylvain Andre, Joris Daudet, and Romain Mahieu topped the charts with 4, 5, and 5 total points respectively. They were even throwing some style on the last straight for the fans, so it appears they are feeling confident.
Top lap time of the day went to Daudet with a 31.463 – but Mahieu was very close with a 31.472. Kamren Larsen put in some solid laps, as he and his countryman Cameron Wood qualified directly to the semi-finals.
NEXT-UP
Day Two on Friday. Expect some surprises and fantastic race action. One thing is for sure – anything can happen and the Day One results could be completely different than Day Two. That is the beauty of Elite BMX Racing, at the Olympic level.
Use the link below, for results.
