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UCI BMX Supercross round 2 at Papendal, Holland: Great event, Olympic replica track, many riders and a lot of spectators, excited to race for a home crowd, broken handlebar… The organisation at Papendal did a great job for their first ever UCI BMX Supercross. They had everything under control and the track, stands, VIP areas etc looked amazing! In my opinion by far the best organized race ever.

On Thursday the first practice kicked of for the men. Because Papendal is my hometrack, I know what to expect, but I could see that many other riders had some problems to get used to this new level of BMX. The heavy wind gusts at Papendal didn’t make it easier for everyone…

During practice I felt pretty confident, but like everybody else I had some hard time due to the wind. Many riders crashed, but luckily most of them could walk off the track by themselves.

As we are coming closer to time trials, I got more and more excited to race in front of a big home crowd. On Friday the pressure was on, cause 120 riders had to race time trials one by one to qualify themselves at the top 64 riders for the race on Saturday. 

If you win a race, you probably like your day and everything involved. Sarah Walker scored maximum points at the Papendal track and here's what she thinks of the track:

What did you hear about the track before you made it to Papendal?
Sarah Walker: I heard it was big and challenging.

Did you try to find videos of it to see what it was like before you went to Holland?
Sarah Walker: If other people on the team found anything then I would have a look but I didn’t go out of my way to find any video footage.

When you arrived at the track, what was your first opinion?
Sarah Walker: It didn’t seem as bad as what originally thought. There were a few blind jumps which I thought could be challenging and the second jump looked kind of big but I’m always bad a judging how I’ll ride a track before I’ve had a go.