By Geert De Clercq
PARIS (Reuters) -First-time Olympians from Argentina and China took gold in the BMX Freestyle finals as a string of dramatic crashes knocked out the reigning medallists under a baking hot Paris sun.
In his first Olympic games, Argentina’s Jose Torres Gil, 29, shot off of the ramp in his first run, flying higher and twisting faster than all competitors, his 94.82 score remaining at the top of the scoreboard throughout the competition.
China’s Yawen Deng, 18, also a first-time Olympian, won the women’s gold medal, the result of a decade-old drive by China to boost its medals count in sports the communist country has not previously dominated.
The jury awarded Deng’s first run a score of 92.60 for a series of high-flying tricks, including her trademark “double tailwhip”, during which she kicks her legs back and forth as if cycling in the air while her bike spins around underneath her.
“After the first run, I was on top and that gave me more confidence to level up my performance in the second run,” Deng told reporters.
Deng and the other Chinese female rider, Jiaqi Sun, are both trained by Tokyo silver medallist Daniel Dhers of Venezuela, a BMX veteran who has trained a generation of riders at his ride park in North Carolina, U.S.
Sun also fell in her second run. The audience applauded her as she got back up, with a lone small Chinese flag waving in the stands overlooking Paris’ historical Place de la Concorde.
The multiple crashes knocked out several of the favourites.
Defending men’s champion Logan Martin of Australia, who won gold in the inaugural BMX Freestyle competition in Tokyo in 2021, crashed twice, with one crash in the final seconds of a spectacular run that could have been worth a podium place but instead left him in ninth and last place.
Tokyo 2021 silver medallist Hannah Roberts of the United States also laid down an impressive routine but fell on her second run as she tried to outdo the Chinese rider who had top marks on the scoreboard.
With riders getting two one-minute rides and the best ride counting, athletes have an incentive to take more risk than in the qualifiers, where the two scores are averaged, but the finals brought gold to those who played it smooth as well as safe.
That did not stop Britain’s Kieran Reilly, in his Olympic debut, from gyrating his way to silver, starting his second run from the highest point of the ramp and stringing together a series of highly technical tricks.
France’s Anthony Jeanjean, 26, who is top of the BMX Freestyle Park UCI World Cup rankings and was one of the favourites to take gold, also had a fall, shocking the home crowd, but a fast and confident second run secured him the bronze medal.
Perris Benegas of the United States took the women’s silver, the second silver in the discipline for the US, following Roberts’ in Tokyo. Australia’s Natalya Diehm won bronze.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Ken Ferris, Clare Fallon and Hugh Lawson)
