DexterKeeping up with BMX at the Beijing Olympics
July 27th 2008 00:07
BMX Olympics Update
Poster for the Olympic Trials in June 2008
A few weeks ago I did a post on the progressive decision to include BMX as competitive event in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
From the Venturacountystar.com - "It's something I've dreamed about since I was little, you know, being in the Olympics," says Kyle Bennett, one of four U.S. BMX cyclists to qualify for the Beijing Games. "It's amazing. It's the highest our sport can go."
Preparing the Olympic track in China
Australia has a team that qualified for the games too and Luke Madill is possibly the most high profile member. Earning himself international headlines when it was revealed that he has built a duplicate of the Olympic track for training purposes.
A 3D model of the track
From Theage.com.au - “Luke Madill, a tattooed, earring-wearing, 28-year-old from Sydney, has been so consumed by the business of becoming that man of late that he has put a BMX website ban on himself and used the local drag races as a distraction.”
“Whatever Madill's placing in Beijing at the end of an intense, 37-odd-second, 370-metre race that will start atop an eight-metre ramp and feature 16 jumps, he will know he could not have prepared for the course better. Because, after taking photos of the Olympic BMX track during a reconnaissance trip to China late last year, Madill, built a replica in his backyard.”
Luke Maddill
Also representing Australia will be Kamikaze and Tanya Bailey, fulfilling the maximum number of riders allowed from each country to compete in the big game.
Tanya Bailey
The trials were held in Chula Vista California USA back in June and since then every team that made the cut has adopted an even stricter regiment to hone their skills. The results will be seen next month.
Video 1 - Footage from the trials
Video 2 - Luke Maddill's Olympic Training Track
Video 3 - Behind the scenes of the Olympic Games Training centre in California
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Video 4 - The Dutch BMX team in Training
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