Nothing random about BMX now

Fairfax Media

To borrow some oft-employed lingo from the kind of audience BMX will draw to the Olympics, this all felt totally random.

The newest addition to the games programme gave Latvia it's second ever Olympic champion and 15th Olympic medallist in any colour.

Strapping Maris Strombergs did it on a bike that looked like it could have been left under a Christmas tree for a 10-year-old.

The Latvian, already ranked the world number one in his sport before he hit Beijing, was introduced to a packed, custom-made venue by an American who looked like he'd eaten 10 bikes for breakfast.

"YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS," The peak capped BMX broadcaster teased.

"IT'S TIME FOR THE MEN'S OLYMPIC FIIINAAAALLLLLLLLLL!"

For no apparent reason, ACDC's Thunderstruck was playing in the background.

Had someone been dropped into the Laoshan velodrome precinct from out of space, this would all have seemed a bit of a beat up.

What truly great sporting event needs technicolour bells and whistles to make it better anyway?

But throughout the three rounds of semi-finals raced by the men and women yesterday - and no more than in the action-packed finals - what happened on the track was even more audacious and than what was happening off it.

The men and women's one-lap races for medals were eventful, gripping and hard fought.

There were Aussies - West Australian Nicole Callisto and Queenslander Jared Graves - in both.

And both of them crashed in their decider.

Callisto left the track with her pants ripped, arms scratched and elbows bloodied but determined to uphold a tough chick image.

Her voice quivered as she responded to questions, but she did not cry. At least not in the interviews.

"I just sort of sat there and a few tears rolled down my face," she admitted, reflecting on the moment she knew her Olympic dash was over.

"It just happened so quick and in the race that can change your life."

Meanwhile Graves, in the box seat early in his final before he was controversially unbalanced by a French opponent and eliminated, could hardly walk.

Great Britain's Shanaze Reade, the two-time reigning BMX world champion and a teenage black woman soon to be a pin-up girl for the London 2012 Olympics, had a day in the horrors.

The favourite for gold crashed in the semis. Then, after managing to qualify for the final, she crashed spectacularly again and allowed French woman Anne-Caroline Chausson to make a dream move and cross the finish line alone.

A 30-year-old, 16-time mountain bike world champion, Chausson gave up BMX when she was 13 only to take it up again last year so she could compete in Beijing.

After the event, Reade speculated that she might have broken her hand.

But in BMX, as the newcomers to the game have learnt, that's nothing - for man or woman.

That was another refreshing element shown off by the sport, because while the women rode a slightly modified course at the Olympics, they lined up on the same three-storey high starting ramp and hit the deck just as hard.

With renegade one-name show Kamakazi knocked out after the three heats and Luke Madill relegated on the first day of competition, Graves was the last Aussie standing in the men's final.

After a start that was slightly off the pace, Graves led after the first hairy corner before being caught in a mess created by Damien Godet seconds later.

At first he cursed violently. Then a limping Graves willed himself to wheel his bike over the finish line.

When he got there he was complaining of a corked leg that was "giving him a bit of curry". This, he mused, was par for the course.

"I had a bit of a scream back when I got up and noticed that my back wheel was taco-ed. That was the end of my lap there," Graves said.

"To have someone else ruin my race for me, that's the most disappointing thing. I don't know what to think right now, I'm a bit down on it all really."

As a collective, the BMX club saved their maddest moves for the Olympics and the competitive juices were at an all-time high.

Ten times higher than at other competitions, Graves estimated.

Some sporting purists would not have even bothered to watch, and perhaps still turned up their noses if they did.

And there were sports journalists from across the globe yesterday doing the same thing in between muttering that this BMX business was below them.

Still, the bronze medallist in the women's event, Jill Kintner from the United States, was confident that the two-and-a-half hour spectacular would have pushed the right people's buttons.

"I think BMX has added a different demographic to the whole Olympic tradition. I don't know if people were ready for it or expecting it but...this is a really exciting course and a lot of people were entertained, so mission accomplished," she said.

American Donny Robinson, the bronze medallist in the men's race, emitted a similar vibe.

"With all the hype leading up to it, we needed to perform and put on a great show," he said.

"If we didn't do that, then it would kind of just die.

"But I think we put on a great show and we showed everyone that the sport is really awesome and hopefully we'll be back in 2012 in London putting on an even better show."

There should be nothing random about that.

BMX is already locked in.

WOMEN'S FINAL

Gold, Anne-Caroline Chausson (FRA), 35.976 secs Silver, Laetitia le Corguille (FRA), +2.066 Bronze, Jill Kintner (USA), +2.698

MEN'S FINAL

Gold, Maris Strombergs (LAT), 36.190 secs Silver, Mike Day (USA), +0.416 Bronze, Donny Robinson (USA), +0.782