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DAY 1, DAY 2, Day 3, and Day 4 REPORT - SCROLL DOWN FOR DAY 2, 3, & 4 After a 11 hour flight from LA, we arrived into Beijing Airport. With no problem getting our bags or going through customs, the toughest part of our airport trek was walking to the public part of the airport. With over 2000 people waiting for friends and loved ones or just crazy cab drivers looking to pick up a fare, this was one of the busiest airports I have ever been to. As we made the walk out, we noticed plenty of Orange shirted Chinese youth. One was holding a sign that read BMX. We found out this was one of the 600 volunteers for the weekends event, and they were here to pick us up and take us the the Hotel about 40 minutes away. The town of Beijing is all about the Olympics, with construction going on all over the city, getting things ready for the Games. Most of it is just about wrapped up, and many areas for the games are quite massive and very unique.
It was very cool to see these signs with directions to the BMX track all over the city. The entire USA BMX team is staying at the Holiday Inn Chan An West. This is no USA Holiday Inn. Beautiful architecture, lots of marble, beautiful entry ways, and a ton of super helpful staff make this 4 star hotel one of the best in the city.
The Track is about 10 minutes from the Hotel and just like the rest of the city, the riders rode to the track today. There are bike park zones all over the city, with these sweet urban commuter style bikes. It doesn't pay to have a nice bike here, as it rains so much, that the bikes just get thrashed. A good majority of people use bikes as there immediate means of transportation.
Brandon Meadows is back from a broken arm and is excited to be here in China. Brandon has excelled on the UCI Supercross tracks and is happy to be back on his bike. I think the best part of the trip for Brandon was that his luggage and bike arrived with him this time, unlike the Supercross in Spain, earlier this year.
Randy Stumpfhauser has been here since Wednesday and looks like he is not too excited as we were on the bus to the track. But Randy is one of the most upbeat guys you will ever meet and once we arrived at the track today, he had the biggest grin on his face. I think every rider from the USA as well as the rest of the riders from around the world were in awe once they saw the track and venue.
As we arrived on the bus to the track, we walked up to see this. At first, I was not quite sure what it was, but as we got closer, it was easy to understand that this is the way up to the track. In the red section are 2 elevators and the gray part is a 6 level walkway to the back of the starting hill. The venue layout is just awesome and was all custom build around the Tom Ritz built BMX track.
This illustration is a layout of the entire BMX venue. The custom built permanent track will only be used once, for the UCI Supercross event and then for the Olympics. It is a beautiful arena and was one of the most exciting things to see for BMX racing. The dome in the picture is the Velodrome area.
This is the massive starting hill that is the UCI Supercross and Olympic standard. The photo does not do it justice to give you a feeling of how tall and steep the starting hill is. This event is one of several test events being held this week for a few of the different Cycling disciplines for the Olympics. Know as "Good Luck Beijing", this is the first UCI Supercross event to include Elite Women. The track splits off on a few of the strait away's, giving the Elite men's probably the toughest BMX track ever built. Tomorrow is the first day of practice, so we will have photos and a days report afterwards.
Day 2 - Practice Day
The day started off with the riders all meeting down in the lobby as they waited for the bus to take them the 2 miles to the track. The 20 riders for the USA all rode to the track as a form of warm up, but as you got outside, you didn't really need it. 90 degrees and 80% humidity, make it quite warm for the riders.
Practice started off for Group A, the top 90 world ranked Elite men. Riders were allowed to rider the track from the bottom of the starting hill for the first 15 minutes, then roll down the hill for the next 15 minutes, and then finally they started to drop gates, using the random dropping system.
As the riders arrive to the portion of practice with the gate, they would all have to hike up this way up to the back of the 30 foot tall gate. The steps had a ramp so it was easy for the riders to push up their bikes. The scaffolding will be a permanent fixture to this track and it was a very cool feature.
As the riders got to the top, it was a bit crowded, as most of the riders were anxious to ride the track, but some were just taking in the site of the most technical track in BMX all in. The random gate seemed to be not a problem for most of the riders and it seems many of the Euros have had a lot of time on the system and had no problem with it. By the end of practice, it seemed to be no trouble to the USA riders at all.
Bubba Harris seems to have been the rider to get the track wired the quickest and was showing off with incredible style over the jump. Kyle Bennett and Luke Madill watch Bubba.
Riders such as Kyle Bennett, Donny Robinson, Mike Day, and Kahlen Young were so exciting to watch ride this part of the track.
Javier Colombo takes to the jump out of the 2nd turn and makes his way down the 3rd strait.
This is the finish area of the track. The last strait is a mellow rhythm section that is still deep between the jumps, but it is so smoothly built, that is seems to be the easiest part of the track.
Just after the finish line area, there is another set of steps to bring the riders back up to the top level of the arena. Another nice feature and forethought of the track venue was the ramp next to the stairs so the riders have an easy way to get their bikes back up. Every idea to make this the best and most convenient facility for the riders was dreamt up and made a reality. Practice for the groups B and C were just after this and things kick off tomorrow with another round of practice for each and then onto the time trials. We will update you and let you know how the top 32 for the men and the top 16 for the women end up.
Day 3 and 4- Time Trial and Race- Men and Women Today was the time trail and the track had been adjusted once again. The 2nd strait away on the men's side needed to be adjusted a little, as it was too inconsistent for the worlds top riders to make a clean run through the entire strait. The track had been modified, but it still didn't seem to flow as well as it could, but most riders made it though the section. It will be changed once again before the racing action, so hopefully for Tuesdays race it will be fine and the entire field will be able to get down it with jumping the entire strait.
As time trails unfolded, a few huge things happened. In the Women's field, it was apparent that Ann Caroline Chauson of France wanted to make up for not winning the World Championships, as she was the leader of the Women's pack. Jill Kitner, Kim Hyashi, Aerial Martin, and Amanda Geving all made there way into the top 16 finial, so the US women's field looks strong.
On the Men's side, the biggest upset was Bubba Harris went down in the 1st run and unfortunately injured his ankle. Bubba had a severely dislocated ankle and had to spend a few days in the hospital. Also Aussie sensation, Kahlen Young crashed very hard and may bruised his lung as well as fractured a few ribs.
Once the time trial started, Mike Day had the fastest lap time, with Kyle Bennett and Steven Cisar in 2nd and 3rd. Danny Caluag, Randy Stumpfhauser, Tyler Brown, and Donny Robinson all made it to the top 32. Brandon Meadows was unable to compete, as his recently broken arm had him 2nd guessing his ability as his arm was incredibly sore, and this was not a track you want to 2nd guess yourself. With a hi profile field of 32 men set for the racing to take place on Tuesday, it would make for some great racing action and a few upsets early on would set the stage for a heavily stacked Euro field.
Kyle Bennett was sporting his new UCI World Championship jersey in Beijing. Kyle had a great run in the time trails, finishing in 2nd just behind Mike day. Kyle looked great on the Beijing track, but wound up not making the main event. The random gate start seemed to be the demised of Kyle, Randy, and Mike Day, as all of the riders would not advance to the main event.
Randy Stumpfhauser looked incredible in practice, but once the 1/4 finials started, his gates were off just a bit. With the random gate being something so new to the team USA riders, it was giving a few of them fits and was the main cause that they did not advance to the main event. With the random gate becoming the normal gate from here on out at UCI events, it wont be long before all the riders have it down and the top guys will be back at the top of the results.
Donny Robinson was the sole USA rider to not only have the gate down, but be so consistent on the Beijing track, not only winning almost every race he entered, but winning the entire event. Donny won from an outside gate pick in the main event as well, and this was no easy task on this track. It was a great performance from Donny and we were all excited to see him take the win.
The most dominate woman at the event was Shanaze Reade. She not only had the fastest time on the course, but she looked so smooth on the track that it almost looked unfair. Ann Caroline Chauson and Shanaze had a good race in the main event, but Ann had to come from behind to finish up 2nd overall, a race very similar to the World Championships, but this time, Ann didn't crash. If Ann and Shanaze were to battle it out the entire race, it would have been a great battle to see, but this time Shanaze was unstoppable. Jamie Staff is the Great Britain Squad coach, and by the looks of Shanaze performance at the event, its a great match fro a rider and coach.
UCI BMX Supercross Results - Round 2 - Beijing
1st-Donny
Robinson
Women’s Final 1st-Shanaze
Reade |
The
Beijing National Stadium, also known as the bird's nest, will be the
main track and field stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics and will be
host to the Opening and Closing ceremonies. In 2002 Government officials
engaged architects worldwide in a design competition. Pritzker Prize-winning
architects Herzog & de Meuron collaborated with ArupSport and China
Architecture Design & Research Group to win the competition. Contemporary
Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, is the Artistic Consultant for design. The
stadium will seat as many as 100,000 spectators during the Olympics.
Tiananmen
Square is the large plaza near the center of Beijing, China, named after
the Tiananmen (literally, Gate of Heavenly Peace) which sits to its
north, separating it from the Forbidden City. It has great cultural
significance as a symbol because it was the site of several key events
in Chinese history. Outside of China, the square is widely known for
the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
All
around the city there are signs with directions to all of the different
Olympic Venues, as well as countdown clocks to the start of the 2008
Olympic Games. 
As
crazy as it might seem, the entire venue was created with the sole purpose
for the BMX race for the Olympics. This is by far the nicest facility
ever built for BMX and the bleachers that lined the track on both side
were ever so impressive. Today it was filled up with mostly all team
staff, but come race day, the arena is sold out for the UCI Supercross
event. 
This
is the end of the 2nd strait. Its hard to see it, but the asphalt berm
is for part of the Women's track, and the jump over it is for the men.
Same
jump, different angle of the photo. Randy Stumpfhauser takes to the
sky, as this is one of the biggest jumps ever to have been made on a
BMX track. The 2nd Strait away on this track has little room for mistake
and will surely be one of the main keys to the time trial and race.
This
is the strait out of the 2nd turn. The 3rd strait is filled with jumps
from turn to turn and the choices of what a rider can do down it are
endless. 
The
lone Elite Woman from the USA to make the finial was Jill Kintner. Jill
had raced BMX fro years, before leaving to become one of the most successful
Women ever from the USA in World Cup Mountain Bike racing. Jill has
made her return to BMX this season and after winning one of the UCI
rounds early on this season, she has made the jump back and forth to
the BMX and MTB racing. Just a few weeks ago, she just missed out on
the UCI World Championship main event for Elite Women and in Beijing,
there was no was she was going to be denied once again. Her incredible
work ethic made a huge difference in just 2 short weeks, as Jill easily
made her way into the main event. Greg Romero has been helping her train
for BMX over the past few months and this is another potent combination
for rider and coach. If Jill's MTB past is any indication of how she
will excel in BMX, Jill has a real shot at an Olympic Medal come next
year. 
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