Weather may be a factor for BMX World Championship fortunes

New Zealand BMX riders will be hoping the European summer weather improves for this week’s UCI World Championships in Copenhagen.

The track in the suburb of Kobenhavns is outdoors with Denmark, like the rest of this part of Europe, experiencing some indifferent summer weather.There was rain yesterday and while today’s weather was settled for the first practice session for age group classes, the forecast for tomorrow is for cloudy conditions with rain on Thursday and the chance of rain through the weekend.

The BikeNZ elite team experienced some indifferent conditions in their training camp in Switzerland, forced to juggle track preparations around the weather.

“It’s just part of our sport right now when tracks are outdoors,” said BikeNZ head coach Ken Cools. “There’s nothing we can do about it but prepare for all conditions. I hope we do get through because it can adversely affect the outcome with a wet track.

“That will be one thing that all the riders will look forward to when the world championships come to Auckland in two years with the track indoors at Vector Arena.”

The track has been prepared by UCI track designer Tom Ritzenthaler. It is 345m with some testing jumps at the end of the first straight and on the second straightaway but none of the trick elements of hip and box jumps that were included in the Supercross World Cup in The Netherlands.

The official opening is in the city centre this evening (local time) with riders under 14 years racing in Challenge classes tomorrow and those over 14 years tomorrow before the elites get their first practice session.

There is a further practice set for Friday before the official time trials with qualifiers moving through to racing with three motos, quarterfinals, semis and final on Saturday in elite men, junior men and women.
New Zealand has a 44-strong team at the championship with 11 in elite racing, the largest in the sport’s history.