FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

When you arrived at the track, what was your first opinion?
Gabi: My first opinion after seeing the track was that we would need more than one hour and a half of practise to resolve it, the jumps looked really big. I comment to my team mates that I could resolve every jump but I wasn't sure to do that in one and a half hour or even with the other hour we have before the time trials, I thougt we would need a few days to do a good job on every jump without mistakes.

Do you think you got enough practice time to get used to the track?
Gabi: I think if every body would have a supercross track for trainning, not exactly like Papendal but just a supercross track, I guess the time would be enough, but as not everybody has the opportunity to train on that kind of track, it takes a long time to get used to the track and the time was not enough for me. I just tried the last straight one time. We have a supercross track in Argentina but believe it or not, we can't use it yet, I'm so sad about that!

Did you manage to jump everything you wanted to jump during the first session?
Gabi: No, I needed both practise session to jump everything I wanted to jump plus the warm up before the race on Saturday to jump one more on the third straight that I didn't jump for time trials.

How much harder is it for you to go from one at a time, to a full race of 8 people on the gate and then ride the track?
Gabi: Well, fortunately I have a good gate which makes me it easier when we are 8 on the gate because I can pedal comfortable on first straight.

The wind definitely didn’t help with the difficulty of the track. Would it have been a different race without the wind?
Gabi: The wind is always bad for bmx, but I don't think the results would be different in that race, at least in women's races I don't think it would be different without the wind.

The men had to take the box jump. What needs to be fixed with that part for the 2012 Olympic track?
Gabi: I couldn't watch a lot of the men's races, I always try to be concentrated on mine, and also this time I went to the Hospital after my second moto so I can't give you a good opinion about the box jump. I saw on practise it was very difficult for a lot of riders, maybe because it was too high or because the jumps before were too big and they didn't have enough speed for the box, but I didn't see them at races.

How often did you crash?
Gabi: In Papendal I crashed once, on my second moto, and I broke a bone in my right foot for which I'll need a surgery next week, but I don't usually crash because I always try to be sure about what I'm going to do before I go for it. I am always careful mostly in qualifications, I usually take more risks in the finals.

Did you wear extra safety gear at this Supercross World Cup?
Gabi: No, I used the same pretection I always use.

Do you think this Papendal track would be a lot easier to ride in two years from now?
Gabi: Yes, I think it will be easier in less than two years, bmx is having a fast evolution and the riders too, so I think it will be like Beijing's track that it looks so difficult one year before and when we went to the Olimpics we were surprise because the jumps looked small and easy.

Ok, imagine you’re the track designer for the London Olympic track and you can make 3 changes to the track. What would they be?
Gabi: The three things I would change are:
1- I would put 2 starting hills, I think it is very much difference choosing line 1 or line 8, I know who choose in first place must have an advantage but I think this is a lot of advantage. And it looks like the starting hill was directed to the men's section more than to the women, probably it was my impression, but in case it is true and it is not possible to put 2 starting hills it would be better for women if it is directed to the middle of the two jumps.
2- the second jump would be a little shorter so we could jump it better and then we could jump the third jump completely.
3- the jumps on last straight would be smaller so we can jump them and the race would not become slow on that part.

Any thanks to the sponsors or any people in particular?
Gabi: I'd like to thank the people who are always helping me,specially my family, my boyfriend Daniel, my trainner Flavio Vaccarezza, my team mates and my sponsors One Bicycles, Gatorade, Quaker and Expreso Brio.