Olympic BMX champions are coming to Haaksbergen, NL.

Jul 01, 2011

Written by Bart de Jong

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Olympic and world champion Maris Strombergs and Olympic medalist Laëtitia Le Corguille appear at the start of the BMX European Championship held in Haaksbergen, the Netherlands. Round 11, on Saturday July 9th, has been upgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 3 race. This means that the riders can earn additional qualifying points for the Olympic Games in London 2012. During the press conference at June 29 in Haaksbergen was revealed that next to the top Dutch riders also lots of strong international riders are attending the Open European Championship. The Olympic qualifying points even attracted riders from Australia, Brazil, Canada and Venezuela to the Netherlands.

The Lativian rider Maris Strombers, who rides in the Elite Men class, is the first Olympic champion BMX. During the Beijing Olympics in 2008, BMX was on the program for the first time and Maris took the gold medal. Maris is also reigning World Champion and he uses the Final Rounds BMX in Haaksbergen to get in shape for the world championships in Copenhagen.

At the Beijing Olympics Laëtitia Le Corguille won the silver medal. In the classification of the Elite Women she holds the ninth place and doesn’t make a chance to win the European Championship. But if she is going to end the season as good as she started it, then she is going for the win. On the 2nd of April she won the first round of the European Championship in Zolder, Belgium.

Strombergs also doesn’t have a chance on the overall win anymore. The young French rider, Joris Daudet (20 years old) has been outstanding this year. He has won 10 out of 10 so far, an unmatched performance. In 2008 Daudet wasn’t old enough to enter the Olympics, but in London he will be fighting for a medal. In Haaksbergen all the Dutch riders will be looking at the rider with number 3, everybody will be eager to defeat him.