At the last round of the European League series I managed to be in the final, but I was in the outside lane which made it hard to get up front. Luckily I stayed on my bike, because many crashes happened in the first turn. 6th place was the best I could do. Two days later we raced the European Champs on the same track. I felt recharged because we had a 1-day break after the European League race. Because I won all my heat races, I had first gate pick in the 1/8 final, so I choose the inside lane. My start timing was a bit to slow, but I still tried to get up front. Only the Russian guy next to me pushed me off the track when we hit the first jump. I lost all my speed and couldn’t make up enough ground to get top 4. At the finish line I felt really frustrated, but that’s BMX racing…
We flew back home on Monday July 14th, so we had less than 2 weeks left before the World Champs in Ahoy Rotterdam. I felt super excited going into this big race in front of my home crowd and a lot of media. The last few training sessions at Papendal went very well. I focused on my start technic, which got better compare to the last few months. This gave me a lot confident going into the World Champs.
On Friday July 25th we had our first practice on the BMX track in Ahoy Rotterdam. Everybody knew the track would be really small. But the track builders and organisation did a great job on using the whole surface of the arena. The track actually felt really good for an indoor track and practice went according to plan.
First we had time trials on Saturday, which is an official World Championship. I had big expectations about myself. I started off really smooth and generated a lot of speed going into the second straight. My only mistake was jumping too low on the step up jump into the second turn so I lost some important speed for the third and last straight. 5th split time, but 17th at the finish line which was a real bummer because only the top 16 guys could race a second lap to get World Champ Time Trial.
The next day I went to the arena in the early morning for 30min of practice and qualifying heat races. I felt really good and I won 2 heat races. During my third heat race I was up front when suddenly my handlebar moved backwards. I cruised to the finish line, because I was hard to ride my bike like this. Eventually 2 guys passed me, but I was easily qualified for the 1/8 final. My mechanic fixed my bike and I got ready for the next race. My 1/8 final was pretty tough with 2 teammates and other big names in the same race. I felt strong all day, so really confident to get a good result at the World Champs in Ahoy Rotterdam. My start was all right, but the guy next to me seem to be faster out of the gate and closed the door right away. I had nowhere to go and the indoor track was too small/ short to catch my competitors… Game over for me and also the rest of my teammates riding in the Elite men class. BMX can be unfair sometimes…
At the finish line I felt angry and really disappointed ending the Worlds Championship in my home country like this, especially because I had a strong feeling about myself. While I’m writing this race report 3 weeks after the race I still feel angry, but I’m going to use that anger to keep working hard for the last 2 World Cups in Argentina and the USA. Congrats to my Junior teammate Niek and Elite woman Laura for their great results!
-Raymon van der Biezen
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.