Rio hopes still intact for Aussie BMX stars

Jul 28, 2015

Written by Bart de Jong

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Deposed champion Sam Willoughby has declared his Rio Olympic campaign on track despite crashing out of yesterday’s BMX world championship final on a dramatic day in Zolder, Belgium. Racing in driving rain and strong winds, Willoughby was leading the field through the second turn in his title defence when he was controversially forced off the track and out of the final by Swiss rider David Graf.

The event had been thrown into chaos when a serious weather warning led officials to make major changes to the format and schedule of competition, including the decision to start all events from the 5m start hill used by the age group challenge classes instead of the elite 8m supercross start hill.

The altered schedule saw riders hit the wet track in a condensed helter skelter program that put immense pressure on the riders. Fellow Australian Olympian and former world champion Caroline Buchanan was drawn to describe the day as ‘crazy, something we’ve never seen before at this level’.

But Willoughby, who also surrendered his time trial jersey in Zolder, said he was looking positively towards the next year and the Rio Olympic Games.

“There were still positives to take out of it,” Willoughby said. “Coming into this event I backed myself pretty well. I had a great prep and to be honest I was really confident coming in here and obviously the conditions today made it tough but I thought I still adapted to them and found myself in a position to win the race and in my eyes should have won the race. Still a lot of positives to take out of it even though I go home without the jersey, but you can’t over analyse today, it was a wild day and I think I handled the occasion as well as I could.”

Willoughby, the silver medallist in London at the last Olympic Games said Dutch wunderkind Niek Kimmann, the man who won yesterday’s final, was now a genuine Olympic contender.

“Absolutely he is a great rider and obviously today he was right there again all day and went into the final as first lane choice,” Willoughby said. “He ended up with a bit of luck in the second corner but none the less he was one of the top guys today for sure and he’s going to be a top guy over the next 12 months.”

The other Australian in the final, Anthony Dean, had an uncharacteristically poor start and then crashed early in the decider but said he too could take away plenty of plusses from the day.

“It definitely feels good to make the final,” Dean said. “That’s the main goal, to make the final then anything can happen as you’ve seen today. After the 2014 world championships where I was in third and crashed and then again making the final here and being in contention to podium again, I’m definitely feeling confident for the Olympics and the next year. I’ll just take it one race at a time and try and get onto the podium.”

Australia’s high performance team, including Willoughby, Dean and Buchanan have a mini-break in Europe next week before they go into camp in the Netherlands on Thursday ahead of the next round of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup in Engelholm, Sweden on August 15-16.

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