A crash in morning practice at the BMX World Championships in Colombia today has left Sarah Walker with a mountain to climb if she is to qualify for the Rio Olympics.
Walker will hope that a damaged shoulder suffered from the fall will allow her to ride competitively in tomorrow’s elimination races in Medellin.
She rolled around the circuit in the time trial today to record a time which ensures a start in elimination racing tomorrow.
If she is fit to race tomorrow, she will need to finish in the top two individuals who have not already qualified to enable the London silver medallist to compete in a third Olympics.
“It’s gutting for her,” said Cycling New Zealand BMX coach Ryan Hollows. “Sarah has trained so hard after coming back from her broken arm and had been strong in practice yesterday.
“The track is quite technical for the women and she just got the first jump slightly offline. The fall has damaged her shoulder and we will just have to see how she can manage tomorrow.”
Fellow Cycling New Zealand high performance rider Matt Cameron produced an excellent lap in 38.095s to be 19th fastest which was 7/100ths of a second behind the last qualifier for the Super final, the 2013 world champion Liam Phillips (GBR).
Fellow Kiwi Michael Bias from North Harbour clocked 39.684s to be 59th from 85 starters in his first world championships in the elite category.
Sunset Coast 16 year old, Maynard Peel was 11th fastest in the junior men’s elite, an excellent effort from the first-year junior. He clocked 39.926s for his lap, only 15/100ths of a second outside the final qualifying spot for the Super final.
Earlier Waikato’s Rebecca Petch also crashed in practice, forcing her to scratch from the junior elite competition.
Wet weather brought some delays with the Super finals completed under lights
Racing gets underway tomorrow with three qualifying motos, where the top four riders from each group advances to the afternoon elimination rounds.
The elimination races from quarterfinals stage will be broadcast live on Sky Television from 8am NZ time.
