I thought I would do something a bit different for a change, since I'm still at our final training camp in Sydney and not yet in Beijing, there's nothing super exciting to talk about as were in our tapering stage and taking it pretty easy most days. I thought I would talk a bit about BMX to let anyone reading this know a bit more about what we do.
 
For the sport of BMX racing most people have visions of Nicole Kidman in her first movie BMX Bandits. While any publicity is good publicity, the riding shown in that movie is far from what we do. Over the past 35 years the sport has evolved from guys riding with their mates in the mud trying to emulate their favourite motocross racing riders, to an Olympic sport where there is a huge international following with a professional racing series stage all over the world, including a World Cup series, which includes riders from many different countries who compete at various locations around the globe.

The tracks we race on at World Cup and Olympic level feature an eight metre high start ramp, which we ride down at speeds of 60km/h within 2.5 seconds of the start gate dropping. The track usually consists of four straights with three corners and is around 350 meters in length, and depending on the track, takes anywhere from 30-40 seconds to complete a race. The track itself has about 10 individual jumps on the track ranging from five metres to 13 metres in length. The courses all have rhythm sections (shorter jumps that are very close together so if you mess up one you will not get through the rest of the straight without losing a bunch of speed and usually getting passed), which provide a variety of different ways to attack a section, with the straightest line through a section being the fastest way.
 
The modern day BMX racer is as dedicated to their sport as any other Olympic athlete. Training involves at least 15 sessions a week, and riders will train anywhere from 20-30 hours a week to better themselves in a variety of different aspects. A typical week's training will involve: sprint, general skills, gate technique and gym sessions for all over body strengthening and conditioning as well.
 
Possibly the most important thing needed in BMX racing is explosive power. A top level BMX racer will be putting around 2000 watts of power down, and even up to 2500 watts in the case of some of the top riders, but it all comes down to your power to weight ratio. A lighter rider with high power is always going to be fast out of the start, and getting to the front early is possibly the most important part of racing. More often than not, if your one of the top three riders at the first turn you will go on to win.
 
Just as important as explosive power is having skills on the bike. It's pretty hard to explain to someone who hasn't seen BMX racing just how difficult the tracks are to just ride, let alone be fast on them and maintain maximum sped at all times while racing seven other guys at one time. The best way I can think to get people to understand what the tracks are like exactly is to tell you to watch us on the 20th and 21^st of August!
 
Another good reason to watch would be that the Australians are very good medal chances! We are the only country for the Olympics that qualified the maximum amount of athletes - three men and two women. For the men, the team consists of Sydney rider Luke Madill, who is ranked #6 in the world, Kamakazi from Brisbane who is ranked #11 in the world, and I am coming into the Olympics ranked #2 in the world. Our female riders, Tanya Bailey and Nicole Callisto (who incidentally are both from Perth) are also ranked in the top 10, and both of them made the top 8 final at the World Cup held on the Olympic track 12 months ago!
 
A quick rundown of the Olympic format

32 riders for in the men's event and 16 in the women's. The men are seeded through time trials, and then the racing brackets of who races who are based off that, so the men will have four groups of eight to start, while the women are straight to the semi finals with two groups of eight.

Each of the four groups of men for the quarter finals will race each other three times, and the top four from these three heats move onto the next round. The same thing will also happen then for the semi final. Semi finalists for both men and women will race the same eight people three times with the top four moving onto the final. From this we will then have eight finalists to do a one lap final to decide the medals!

Our seeding runs and quarter finals are to be held on Wednesday 20 August and the semi finals and the final the be held the following day.
 
I hope you have found this interesting, and hope you tune in to cheer us on!

Gravey!