WAIS BMX athlete Lauren Reynolds missed out on the finals at World Championships in England last weekend after being caught up in a crash during the semi-final.
The Bunbury born Olympic hopeful went down rounding a corner after a tangle of bikes in front of her left her with no room to move.
Reynolds’ Australian teammate Caroline Buchanan also missed out on a spot in the final, after failing to post a quick enough time, but there was better news in the men’s elite competition, with South Australian Sam Willoughby winning a world championship title.
Leading into the championships Willoughby had been frustrated by second place finishes in all three Supercross World Cup rounds. At the most recent in the Netherlands he crashed hard during the time trial and suffered bad bruising to his shoulder, knee, and hip but was back on his bike the next day. However an intense head-to-head battle went the way of Olympic Champion Maris Strombergs from Latvia who headed Willoughby on the line by a mere 16 thousandths of a second to win the Papendal round.
“It’s so cut-throat out there and you have to be perfect every time. I’ve been 98 percent every time so I just need to get that extra two percent,” said Willoughby at the time.
Today he found the two percent he needed and more as he used the loss to fuel his campaign for gold. He powered through the early rounds placing first in every race bar his quarter final. In his semi final he led from start to finish.
In the final he had the inside run from the number one start position at the gate and rocketed down the start ramp to hit the lead at the first berm (corner). He kept up the pressure to be a bike length clear by the halfway point and from there he was never headed. He crossed the line almost a second ahead of French silver medallist Joris Daudet. Moana Moo Caille, also of France, was a further seven tenths of a second behind in third place. South Australian Anthony Dean was fourth.
Willoughby’s result has earned him an automatic nomination to the Australian Olympic Committee for selection in the team for the Olympic Games in London but the new world champion will first take some time to savour today’s result.
“I’m going to enjoy this one (and) then switch gears and go for that Olympic one,” he said. “We’ll start training again in a week or so but right now I’m going to let this thing sink in because that’s going to take a week or so.”
Australia went into the Championships as the number one nation in the UCI world rankings (as at 17 April) in both men’s and women’s elite competition and has qualified the maximum of five starting positions (three men and two women) for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
While rider ranking is an important part of the nomination criteria a rider who wins a medal in the elite class race (time trials not included) at the World Championships will secure automatic nomination for selection by the Australian Olympic Committee in the team for London. The BMX team for the Olympic Games is due to be announced by the AOC in late June.
with Cycling Australia
