Tuesday 5 June 2012

2012 UCI BMX World Championships - Birmingham UK

This year we saw the BMX world Championship circuit come to sunny Great Britain, the event was held at the NIA Arena in Birmingham City Centre, and in typical fashion, with the race being indoors it meant cloudless, beautiful days outside, for the entirety of the event. Amazing.



Some 2500+ riders and their entourages descended on Birmingham to go for glory and the title of world Champion in their respective classes. The British riders came strong, with some riders laying it all out and putting down amazing rides, but there was also some upset, disappointment and down right misfortune for some of our riders.



Amazing rides and world titles came from the likes of Ross Cullen, who didn't that look as though he could pull it out of the bag through qualyfying but absolutley smashed the main! Every bodies favourite blogger, trailsboss and video editor Joey Gough and the amazing Quillan Isidore, big up your statuses as World Champions. Quillan, you were a joy and honour to watch on track. No one came close to touching you my friend, annihilation. Joey looked good all day in the 17+ womens class, and in the final, she lead it out from the first jump all the way to the line. The other girls may have had some extra ponies and a better gate on them, but Joey came through with the skills, smoothing her way to being World Champ. She's one of my besties from the French trip and to be in the stands with all her nearest and dearest at the time was euphoric, the place went mental sissa.

Bad luck be-felled many of our riders, and 2 of them that showed so much promise were Paddy Sharrock and Liam Phillips, I was absolutely gutted for you both, 2 crashes that were unavoidable, and bought an end to the World Champ dream. But I know Liam will be back on form for the London Olympics in several weeks, and Paddy will be on a charge next year in the 15's class. So much more to come from that lad.

My race was a bit shit if i'm honest, I felt as though I rode well, but just not fast enough for the cats of the Master class. It was an honour to be getting on the gate with some seriously fast dudes, some of whom were ex World Champs and to be getting amongst them all a bit. I learned a lot, perhaps the biggest lesson being that I ought to stick to the Challenge 30+ class!

Up to the Worlds I had been pretty unlucky, damaging my left hand in a bad crash and fracturing my left heel at Grippen Park, smashing my elbow into the face of a jump at Howell, and getting doored by a yellow taxi cab on Water street on my way to work. In all fairness, I could have done without all of those things, and they were all pretty avoidable too.



The Worlds experience for me was an amazing one, seeing all my old friends from the race scene, having a bit of a social after racing (dangerous), riding some of the amazing tracks nearby to Birmingham including the unbelievable Perry Park, and the old fave Derby. The amazing weather, and the way a few people went out of their way to help me out on my long trip. Thank you! It was an amazing time.

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