Australian Lauren Reynolds has claimed second place in the final round of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup series in Frejus in the south of France.
The 19-year-old West Australian finished just behind New Zealand’s Sarah Walker with 2009 Junior World Champion Mariana Pajon of Colombia third. Queensland’s Rachel Bracken, 19, was seventh in the final.
“Lauren got herself into good position from the start and had the speed to stay up with Walker,” said Head Coach Wade Bootes adding the qualification round presented some challenges. “Qualifying was really windy for some of the riders and it screwed up both Lauren’s and Rachel’s time trial laps and caused all sorts of weird results.”
Canberra’s Caroline Buchanan had qualified second fastest but was knocked out in the semi-final round.
“In the third race of the motos someone crashed onto her back wheel and brought her down and she was a bit sore,” said Head Coach Wade Bootes. “We had to strap her shoulder up for the semis but she struggled and didn’t get though.”
Despite missing out on the final her qualifying performance gave her enough points to finish second overall in the series with 512 points, 167 points behind French rider Laetitia le Corguillé.
In the men’s final reigning Olympic and World Champion Maris Strombergs proved too strong for his rivals powering down the start hill in front of thousands of fans and dominating the race through to the finish. Second was Marc Willers from New Zealand and third American Connor Fields.
The victory also gave Strombergs the 2010 Supercross World Cup title. South Australia’s Sam Willoughby, 19, went into the final round as the defending series champion and the only rider within striking distance of Strombergs but in order to win the 2010 series crown the two time junior world champion had to finish two places ahead of his rival. Instead he finished behind the Latvian in fourth place to finish the series ranked second overall.
Fellow South Australian Brian Kirkham, 24, also qualified for the final where he finished in seventh place.
“Definitely we’re getting more of the outcomes we deserve and out of seven riders we had four in the final and one on the podium but we can do better,” said Bootes. “Sam, Brian and Luke (Madill) rode really well but in the quarter final Luke and Sam crashed and Sam ran across the finish line to qualify but Luke didn’t make it.
“It was a little comical but disappointing for Luke who had the speed to make the final,” said Bootes. “Brian posted the second fastest lap of the day and was in good form but in the final he and Sam bumped each other a bit in the second corner which stopped Brian’s run.”
After the competition the riders attended the 2010 BMX Supercross Awards where Willoughby and Buchanan won the male and female People’s Choice award as the most popular riders of the year.
In a close result Buchanan collected 30% of the votes to clinch the award while in the men’s online poll Willoughby was a clear winner attracting 45% of the total votes.
Willoughby will now head to the Las Vegas to race the ABA series while the rest of the High Performance squad will race in Rotorua, New Zealand at the end of the month in the opening two rounds of the UCI Continental Ranking Series.
BMX world ranking points will accumulate up to May 2012 and determine the number of riders each nation qualifies for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
– Cycling Australia
