BMX riders put it on the line at U.S. Olympic Trials at Chula Vista OTC

BMX Cycling made its Olympic debut at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games. While originally a homegrown sport in the USA (specifically California), the sport has quickly caught an international wave.

Latvia’s Maris Strombergs, in fact, won gold medals in the men’s competition in Beijing and at 2012 London Games while France’s Anne-Caroline Chausson and Colombia’s Mariana Pajon have each won one gold medal.

Team USA’s Mike Day (2008) and Australia’s Sam Willoughby (2012) are the men’s silver medalists from the previous two Olympic Games while France’s Laetitia Le Corguille (2008) and New Zealand’s Sarah Walker (2012) each have captured silver medals.

Team USA’s Donny Robinson won the men’s bronze medal in 2008 while Jill Kintner secured a bronze medal in the women’s competition to send three American riders to the awards podium at the inaugural event for BMX Cycling in the Olympic Games.

The road to 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games took a turn toward the finish line at the U.S. Olympic Training Center-Chula Vista June 10-11 as an exciting weekend of racing wrapped up with Corben Sharrah locking in a spot on the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team.

The action began on June 10 with the USA BMX Last Chance Qualifier, which sent one racer from the field of 16 men to fill the last entry position in the next day’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials. The final eight qualifiers through the motos included Logan Collins, Tommy Zula, Jordan Miranda, Layne Gainer, Kyle McRory, Zachary VanKammen, Elliot McGrath and Tyler Faoro.

Most of the field of racers hit the ground during a tangle in the first turn, but Zula and VanKammen were able to finish the race, with  VanKammen edgding Zula at the finish line for the apparent victory.

However, VanKammen (Lake Elsinore) had not accumulated the required 10 UCI points to be eligible to compete at the Olympic Games. Zula, from Ohio, did have the required points and was declared (by a vote of the USA Cycling Selection Committee) as the first U.S. Olympic Trials eligible rider to cross the finish line at the last chance qualifier.

Zula thus advanced to the second day of competition.

While hundreds turned out to watch the last chance qualifier on the Beijing replica course, more than 2,000 racing fans attended the following day’s Olympic Trials on the London/Rio replica course.

Zula was joined by Jared Garcia, David Herman, Barry Nobles, Justin Posey, Tanner Sebesta, Jeffery Upshaw and Sharrah in the final field of eight riders competing in the U.S. Olympic Trials.

The eight men took an individual time trial lap and then went into three rounds of motos with four riders in each moto. Following the third moto, Garcia and Zula were eliminated, bringing the final field down to six racers.

Sharrah, who won all three of his motos, captured the finals field with a time of 37.38 seconds ahead of Nobles (second), Herman (third), Upshaw (fourth), Sebesta (fifth) and Posey (sixth).

The triumph was especially rewarding for Sharrah, a Tucson resident. He suffered a broken right femur at the 2011 world championships during a crash and did all he could to speed up a normally lengthy recovery process to be in position to punch his way to the 2016 Rio Games.

BMX Olympians Connor Fields (Las Vegas) and Nic Long (Lakeside) did not compete at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials. Fields, who won the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, was nursing an injury while Long had already accumulated enough rankings points to earn an automatic nomination to the 2016 Team USA squad.

Long and Team USA women’s automatic nominee Alise Post both captured bronze medals at the 2016 UCI BMX World Championships in Medellin, Colombia, on May 29 to clinch their positions on the U.S. team.

Post (St. Cloud, Minn.) also represented the United States at the 2012 London Games.

The Rio Games are scheduled Aug. 5-21. The United States receives three qualifiers for the men’s competition and two for the women’s competition.

USA Cycling will announce the final men’s and women’s spots by Friday, June 24.

World Championships
Post finished the final in 42.861 seconds — 1.476 seconds behind Colombia’s Pajon, the reigning Olympic champion.
Post, 25, has now won three world championship medals: one silver medal (2014) and two bronze medals (2010, 2016).

A former competitive gymnast, she finished 12th at the 2012 London Games, but has since seen her star rise on the international circuit with six World Cup medals from 2013-15. She won four consecutive national championships from 2011-14.

Long, 26, crossed the finish line in 38.380 seconds, 0.6 seconds ahead of France’s Jeremy Rencurel.

The bronze medal is Long’s best world championship showing. Previously, he had not placed higher than fifth in world championship competition, though he did come away with the silver medal at the 2011 Pan American Games and a bronze medal at the 2015 Pan American Games. He is hoping to improve on his 17th-place showing in his debut at the London Games.

Websites: www.usacycling.org, www.olympic.org/cycling-bmx