BMX, Men

Māris Štrombergs of Latvia was the defending Olympic and two-time World Champion and was seeking to defend his Olympic gold in 2012, but injuries had plagued him over the past years and he was far from the overwhelming favorite. Challenging him for the title were Australia’s Sam Willoughby, the reigning World Champion, and Frenchman Joris Daudet, the 2011 World Champion, along with a host of other prospects who were, relatively, much younger than Štrombergs. In an event as unpredictable as BMX, however, nearly every rider who started had at least some chance of bringing home a medal.

The first surprises came in the qualification when Raymon van der Biezen and Twan van Gendt, members of the Dutch team, posted the best and third-best times of the seeding run respectively, sandwiching Daudet in-between them. The Netherlands, which had not seen a men’s World Championship medalist since Robert de Wilde in 2005, had not been thought to be a medal contender in the event, but quickly established itself as a nation to watch for at the podium. The Dutch team continued their dominance in the quarterfinals, with both van Gendt and van der Biezen winning their finals alongside American Connor Fields and New Zealander Marc Willers. Fields and Willoughby were the stars of the semi-finals, each winning two of their three runs, while Willers and Daudet crashed in their first and third runs respectively and were eliminated from the finals. Willers attempted to continue the competition and rode in the second race, although it was clear that his crash had hampered his performance and he did not start the third race. In the final Štrombergs, who had only won one of the six races of the quarter and semi-finals, took an early lead and never relinquished it. Willoughby was on his tail the entire time, but his final push came up just short and he was left to settle for silver. Throughout the race hometown favorite Liam Phillips looked poised to take the bronze medal, but crashed as he was passed by Carlos Oquendo of Colombia, a relative unknown, who finished in third place. Fields had also fallen during the race, but he had had a bad start and was never in contention for the podium. The two Dutch competitors, despite their success in the early stages, finished the event in fourth (van der Biezen) and fifth (van Gendt).