Poor start scuppers Bethany Shriever's bid for gold
Bethany Shriever’s bid to become a two-time Olympic BMX racing champion was ruined by a nightmare start in the Paris 2024 final.
The 25-year-old defending champion had cruised through the quarter-finals and semi-finals, winning every race at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Stadium.
But the normally quick starting Shriever never got going in the final and was crowded out, finishing dead last as Australia’s Saya Sakakibara won gold.
It completed a nightmare night for GB, who earlier saw Kye White crash out of the men’s event.
Joris Daudet then led home a French one-two-three ahead of Sylvain Andre and Romain Mahieu, in front of the watching President Macron, to spark wild scenes of celebration in the stands and in large parts of the press box.
That came 15 minutes ahead of the women's final, which Shriever entered as a strong contender.
The Londoner had won all three of her semi-finals earlier in the evening with ease but so had Sakakibara, twice recording quicker times than the GB star.
The final promised to be some race but a dreadful start did for Shriever and she was never in the mix, despite her best efforts to recover.
Earlier, in the men’s event, White’s hopes of following up his silver medal from Tokyo ended in painful fashion.
The 24-year-old, who revealed on Thursday he was nursing a back injury, crashed heavily in the second semi-final heat and was taken from the course on a stretcher.
