The women's BMX racing competition at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on August 20–22 at the Laoshan BMX Field, the first to be officially featured in the Olympic cycling program.
Coming out of retirement from her sporting career to try out for BMX at age thirty, France's Anne-Caroline Chausson escaped from an early race crash that left two riders off the ramp to claim the event's inaugural Olympic gold medal. She thundered home on the final stretch to a spectacular finish with a fastest time in 35.976. Chausson also enjoyed her teammate Laëtitia Le Corguillé taking home the silver in 38.042, as she finished the race behind the leader by nearly seven hundredths of a second (0.07) and also, handed the French squad a straight 1–2 finish on the medal podium. Meanwhile, United States' Jill Kintner came up with a powerful, stalwart ride to earn the bronze in 38.674, edging out New Zealand's Sarah Walker by a short sprint distance.
Qualification
Sixteen riders representing twelve countries qualified for the event. Qualification was based on UCI ranking by nations, 2008 UCI BMX World Championships results and wild-cards reserved to a Tripartite Commission (IOC, ANOC, UCI).http://uci.ch/includes/asp/getTarget.asp?type=FILE&id=MzU5MTI
Competition format Each of the 16 women competing performed two runs of the course in individual time trials to determine seeding for the knockout rounds. Then, they were grouped into 2 semifinal groups based on that seeding. Each semifinal consisted of three runs of the course, using a point-for-place system. The top four cyclists in each semifinal (for a total of 8) moved on to the final. Unlike the semifinals, the final consisted of a single race with the first to the finish line claiming the gold medal.
Schedule All times are China Standard Time (UTC+8) Date Time RoundWednesday, 20 August 2008 09:45 SeedingFriday, 20 August 2008 09:00 Semifinals and final
Results
Seeding Rank Name Country Time Notes 1 Anne-Caroline Chausson 36.660 2 Shanaze Reade 36.882 3 Laëtitia Le Corguillé 37.145 4 Sarah Walker 37.187 5 Gabriela Díaz 37.590 6 Nicole Callisto 37.717 7 Jill Kintner 37.913 8 Jana Horáková 38.077 9 Jenny Fähndrich 38.209 10 Tanya Bailey 38.285 11 Lieke Klaus 38.709 12 Amanda Sørensen 38.719 13 Samantha Cools 39.137 14 María Belén Dutto 40.193 15 Anikó Hódi 41.772 16 Ma Liyun 42.015
Semifinals
Heat 1 Rank Name Country 1st run 2nd run 3rd run Total Notes 1 Anne-Caroline Chausson 36.931 (1) 37.028 (1) 36.747 (2) 4 Q 2 Sarah Walker 37.499 (2) 39.038 (3) 36.731 (1) 6 Q 3 Gabriela Díaz 37.605 (3) 38.235 (2) (8) 13 Q 4 Samantha Cools 39.765 (6) 39.457 (5) 38.690 (3) 14 Q 5 Jana Horáková 39.107 (5) 39.457 (4) 1:32.284 (7) 16 6 Jenny Fähndrich 38.658 (4) 45.912 (7) 52.687 (6) 17 7 Ma Liyun 41.789 (7) 41.497 (6) 41.839 (5) 18 8 Amanda Sørensen (8) 47.469 (8) 39.474 (4) 20
Heat 2 Rank Name Country 1st run 2nd run 3rd run Total Notes 1 Laëtitia Le Corguillé 37.917 (1) 37.130 (1) 37.076 (2) 4 Q 2 Jill Kintner 38.950 (3) 39.700 (3) 38.235 (3) 9 Q 3 Shanaze Reade 2:17.714 (7) 39.218 (2) 36.699 (1) 10 Q 4 Nicole Callisto 38.244 (2) 47.311 (6) 38.435 (4) 12 Q 5 Lieke Klaus 40.955 (4) 40.143 (4) 38.800 (5) 13 6 Anikó Hódi 44.021 (6) 41.867 (5) 40.169 (7) 18 7 María Belén Dutto 41.307 (5) 47.927 (7) 40.295 (8) 20 8 Tanya Bailey (8) (8) 39.505 (6) 22
Final Rank Name Country Time Notes Anne-Caroline Chausson 35.976 Laëtitia Le Corguillé 38.042 Jill Kintner 38.674 4 Sarah Walker 38.805 5 Gabriela Díaz 39.747 6 Nicole Callisto 1:19.609 7 Samantha Cools 8 Shanaze Reade
References