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*** BMX Worlds Last Chance Spots Beijing ***

Union Cycliste Internationale News -- 06/02/2008
BMX World Championships : Last chance to win spots for Beijing.


Photo - Men Elite Podium.

Two months before the Olympic Games, China hosted the World
Championships for a cycling discipline for the first time. Some 300
BMX specialists, from 30 countries, gathered in Taiyuan on Saturday
and Sunday to participate in the competitions that award the rainbow
jerseys. It was also a last chance to win spots for the season’s big
event in Beijing on a magnificent track designed and built by the UCI
team.

The overall assessment of the event, which aroused a lot of
interest from the national media and drew the attention of a
large and enthusiastic public, was very positive, both from an
organization and sporting point of view.

Even if, with four out of the eight gold medals on offer during the
week-end, France dominated the event, as far as individuals are
concerned, the British rider Shanaze Reade confirmed that she is
the real star of the discipline. It is her third consecutive victory
after Sao Paulo as a junior in 2006, and Victoria last year.

Anne-Caroline Chausson, a real mountain bike icon who returned
to BMX to continue her dream of completing her history of wins with
the only title that still escapes her, had to make do with the silver
medal this time. The next confrontation between these two great
athletes, who were joined on the podium by the New Zealander
Sarah Walker, promises to be exciting.

In the men’s competition, victory went to the Latvian Maris
Strombergs, who managed to outride the competition from
the United States (Steven Cisar, 2nd, and Donny Robinson,
4th) and France (Damien Godet, 5th, and Thomas Hamon, 6th).

Four continents were represented in this final, demonstrating the
universality of the youngest and most spectacular cycling discipline:
alongside the Americans and the Europeans, Sifiso Nhlapo a South
African trainee at the World Cycling Centre in Aigle, Switzerland,
earned a 3rd place for his country and in doing so qualified for the
Olympic Games. Jared Graves (Australia) finished 7th in front of the
Venezuelan Jonathan Suarez, World Champion in the Cruiser category.

In the Juniors Women category, Manon Valentino (France) took the
gold medal in front of the Australians Lauren Reynolds and Rachel
Bracken. The French rider nearly managed a double in the Cruiser
category, where she was beaten by the Colombian Mariana Pajon.

The Australian Sam Willoughby (BMX) and French rider Joris Daudet
(Cruiser) won the Juniors Men events, which saw another French rider,
Vincent Pelluard, finish second both times.

In the Elite Women Cruiser category, Sarah Walker, winner in Canada
in 2007, had to bow to the supremacy of the French riders Magalie Pottier
(two times gold medal winner as a junior last year) and Amélie Despeaux.

It was also a success story for the French in the last event in Taiyuan,
the Elite Men Cruiser, with Thomas Hamon finishing in front of the Italian
Manuel De Vecchi, who qualified his country for the Olympic Games in
BMX, and the 2007 champion Jonathan Suarez, of Venezuela.

CC - http://www.uci.ch
ACC - http://www.genesbmx.com/2008-bmx-olympics.html
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