Category — BMX Racing

Maris Strombergs of Latvia wins the first gold medal for his country and the second gold medal awarded for the newly introduced sport of BMX cycling. French Anne-Caroline Chausson has the distinction as the first Olympic gold medalist for the sport when she won the women’s BMX competition.
Photo credits: Adam Pretty and Phil Walter.

We were intrigued by BMX racing, the new Olympic sport which we blogged about earlier, so we decided to do more research on the racers who would do well in Beijing.

What did we find out? It turns out that like our favorite sport, tennis, there is also a ranking system applied in BMX racing. Here’s the ranking for the top 20 according to the Union Cycliste International (UCI):

1. WILLERS Marc: New Zealand
2. GRAVES Jared: Australia
3. BENNETT Kyle: USA
4. ROBINSON Donny: USA
5. MADILL Luke: Australia
6. DAY Mike: USA
7. STROMBERGS Maris: Latvia
8. DE WILDE Robert: Netherlands
9. PROKOP Michal: Czech Republic
10. KAZI Kama: Australia
11. NHLAPO Sifiso: South Africa
12. LAKUCS Ivo: Latvia
13. SUAREZ Jonathan: Venezuela
14. CISAR Steven: USA
15. MATISONS Arturs: Latvia
16. GUTIERREZ Pablo: France
17. CAMERON Alexander: Australia
18. JOLLIFEE Billy: Australia
19. MARINO Ramiro: Argentina
20. FALLA BUCHELY Emilio Andres: Ecuador

You can see the complete ranking at the UCI website. We will do a post for the women’s ranking in the coming days.

Sport to Watch: BMX Racing in the Olympics

Bicycle Motocross or BMX racing will debut as an Olympic medal sport in Beijing 2008. Let’s see what the sport is like with this video of the UCI BMX Supercross Adelaide Elite Men Final in Australia.

Can you feel the heat and the adrenalin? The guys in the video — Maris Strombergs, Jared Graves, David Herman, Luke Madill, Raymon Van Der Beizen, Emilio Falla, Kamakazi, Michal Prokop — would be among the contenders in Beijing.