BikeNZ team relaxed for BMX World Championships

The track for this weekend’s UCI BMX World Championships in Adelaide has been sight unseen until today for the New Zealand riders.

Organisers have been working overtime to finish off the track which has been built indoors at the Adelaide Showgrounds with the age group riders having their practice on the new track today and the elite competitors not on track until Friday, the day before the world championship.

BikeNZ coach Ken Cools said his team is relaxed about the track which they will not get to train on until Friday afternoon.

“Security has been quite tight as they work to finish the track so we have not been allowed in there to look at it yet,” Cools said.

“We’ve been shown some photographs that one of the Australian competitors took. It does not really concern me too much. We will get to see it in action with the challenge classes and I am sure they will have ironed out any issues before the elite riders get on it on Friday.”

The Challenge, or age-group classes begin their practice today and tomorrow before competition begins on Thursday and Friday morning. The junior men, junior women, elite men and elite women have a 55 minute practice session each on Friday afternoon with a further 55 minutes session on Saturday morning.

Competition begins at 1pm local time on Saturday with qualifying motos, eighth finals, quarterfinals and main finals to be completed by 5pm.

The cruiser class 20 inch diameter wheel world championship is on Sunday with challenge age group classes in the morning and elite competition in the afternoon.

Cools said the team has settled well for the elite competition with Olympians Marc Willers and Sarah Walker leading the chances.

Walker, third last year and second in 2007, goes in as the current world No 1 ranked rider while Willers has returned from his base near Los Angeles with confidence after recovering from a serious shoulder injury.

“Marc looks great. He is in tremendous shape and is probably in the best head-space that I have seen him in,” Cools said.

Willers is an extremely aggressive rider who has crashed out of a number of high profile events including the Beijing Olympics in the last two years.

“He is as fast as any rider in the world. If he can put it all together then he has the ability to surprise a lot of people and even go all the way.”

Cools said that Walker, who had been slowed by a virus during a key part of her preparation, is peaking at the right time.

“She has looked fantastic in training over here and is really getting sharp.”

New Zealand has a record 220 competitors in the BMX World Championships in the Challenge and Elite classes in the BMX World Championships and Cruiser World Championships.