Opening of the BMX Supercross track in Papendal, NL. By BdJ

Mar 28, 2011

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 7492 times

Here's another example of what can happen once a sport makes it to the Olympics. On Friday the BMX Supercross track was officially openend at the Olympic Training Facility in Papendal, Holland. 300.000 Euro it cost, funded by the NOC NSF. The track was made by Tom Ritz, the person who is also going to build the Olympic track for London this May. The plans were already available and the Dutch BMX selection now has a training facility that they can use to prepare for the 2012 Olympics in London.

The track is spectacular and it's good to see BMX racing is stepping it up. The 5 year olds won't be able to ride on this track and why would the very best BMX race

rs use the same track as the little groms and grandpa on his cruiser? For starters, the gate drops down from a 9 meter high hill. The speed at the bottom will be close to 60 Km/h. With 8 riders side by side the 12 meter gap will be jumped, folllowed by another double. Now that's something different. The Dutch BMX selection was present at Papendal and some of them demonstrated to the big number of press how it's done. But not every jump was done. Evil Ivo crashed on a step up the day before because the take off was still too soft. The jump over the first turn had not been done up until then but Twan van Gendt put an end to that this weekend and jumped it.

The track i

s gnarly. Even Ivo "666" van der Putten says so. But it's a challenge and of course it's great to have a track like this available to train on heading towards the Olympic Games next year. On the second straight the boys jump over the girls section again (second time), then head into a right hander with a double, another 90 degree turn and then they've got to

jump onto a container. There's no room for error there because if you don't make it on top, the race is over.

The first lap in Papendal had some fireworks going off as Jelle van Gorkom, Sander Bisseling, Raymon van der Biezen and Rob van den Wildenberg rode a lap around the Olympic replica track. The rather big crowd got excited already. Bring on the Games.

By BdJ