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Road to Tokyo: BMX Olympic preview

The long awaited and one-year delayed Olympic games are finally here! This will be the fourth Olympiad for the sport of BMX Racing and American riders are highly favored to bring home the Gold.

  • July, 22nd 2021
  • 3 min read

The long awaited and one-year delayed Olympic games are finally here! This will be the fourth Olympiad for the sport of BMX Racing, and American riders are highly favored to bring home the Gold. 

Racing takes place this Thursday and Friday in Tokyo, with BMX freestyle making its Olympic debut on Saturday and Sunday. That means that here in America, competition can be viewed one day earlier, in the evening. 


 

Here is how you can watch LIVE on NBCOlympics.com livestream:
Thurs, July 29 = Quarterfinals
Friday, July 30 = Semis and Finals

 


After years of racing for Country points to qualify the maximum of three riders, and individual riders competing for the most UCI points to earn a spot on their countries Olympic team, the final 48 riders (24 men / 24 women) have been decided. Let's take a look at your 2021 BMX Olympians:

ELITE MEN: (24 Riders)


FRANCE  (3 men)

Joris Daudet – FRANCE

Sylvain Andre – FRANCE

Romain Mahieu – FRANCE

NETHERLANDS (3 men)

Niek Kimmann – NETHERLANDS

Twan van Gendt – NETHERLANDS

Joris Harmsen – NETHERLANDS

USA (2 men)

Connor Fields – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Corben Sharrah – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

SWITZERLAND (2 men)

David Graf – SWITZERLAND

Simon Marquart – SWITZERLAND

COLOMBIA (2 men)

Carlos Ramirez – COLOMBIA

Vincent Pelluard – COLOMBIA

COUNTRIES (who qualified 1 spot)

Anthony Dean – AUSTRALIA

Kye Whyte – GREAT BRITAIN

Exequiel Torres – ARGENTINA

Renato Rezende – BRAZIL

Alfredo Campo – ECUADOR

Alex Limberg – SOUTH AFRICA

Tore Navrestad – NORWAY

James Palmer – CANADA

Evgeny Kleshchenko – RUSSIA

Giacomo Fantoni – ITALY

Helvijs Babris – LATVIA

Yoshi Nagasako – JAPAN 


ELITE WOMEN: (24 Riders)


The NETHERLANDS (3 women)

Laura Smulders – NETHERLANDS

Merel Smulders – NETHERLANDS

Judy Baauw – NETHERLANDS

USA (3 women)

Alise Willoughby – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Felicia Stancil – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Payton Ridenour – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FRANCE (2 women)

Axelle Etienne – FRANCE

Manon Valentino – FRANCE

COUNTRIES (who qualified 1 spot)

Natalia Afremova – RUSSIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

Natalia Suvorova – RUSSIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

Saya Sakakibara – AUSTRALIA

Lauren Reynolds – AUSTRALIA

Mariana Pajon – COLOMBIA

Priscilla Stevaux Carnaval – BRAZIL

Rebecca Petch – NEW ZEALAND

Simone Christensen – DENMARK

Zoé Claessens – SWITZERLAND

Drew Mechielsen  – CANADA

Bethany Shriever – GREAT BRITAN

Dome Azuero – ECUADOR

Sae Hatakeyama – JAPAN

Vineta Pétersone – LATVIA

Elke Vanhoof – BELGIUM

Sky Chutikan – THAILAND


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