Saya Sakakibara has started her UCI BMX Racing World Cup title defence strongly in France, winning Round 2 on Sunday after finishing third in the opening round on Saturday.<\/p>\n
In the Round 2 final, the 26-year-old ARA Australian Cycling Team star grabbed the holeshot from Sarrians’ first gate and raced away from the chasing pack, led by Round 1 winner Molly Simpson (Canada), to win comfortably by 0.837 seconds.<\/p>\n
The Olympic champion clocked the fastest women’s lap of the weekend to claim the 13th elite World Cup win of her career.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“It (the win) sets me up for the season,” Sakakibara said.<\/p>\n
“You never really know coming into a new season, how … what you’ve been doing is going to work.<\/p>\n
“Yesterday, I was able to get the fastest lap of the day, and I knew that I had an in me to get this win.<\/p>\n
“There’s so many great riders on that gate today, and all I had to do was believe in myself, and I did.<\/p>\n
“Because it’s such a short first straight, it’s so important to really get out in front and that’s how Molly (Simpson) did so well yesterday, and I knew I had the inside of her on this one. I knew that if I did my best gate, I would at least match her down the hill and it was going to be a race from there.”<\/p>\n
The reigning three-time World Cup overall winner travels to rounds three and four next weekend in Papendal second in the points standings behind Simpson.<\/p>\n
The Dutch double-header will be the final World Cups before Sakakibara turns her attention to a home 2026 UCI BMX Racing World Championships in Brisbane.<\/p>\n
“I think the home World Championships is probably as big as the Olympic Games and it’s kind of a really good timing two years from the Games, and it’s going to be so special to be able to compete in a World Championships on home soil, (with a) home crowd,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I can see how amazing the support here for the French, for Axelle (\u00c9tienne) on the gate. I had to smile for her because the crowd here is seriously so good.”<\/p>\n
In the Under-23 classes, Josh Jolly and Bella Schramm both delivered second place finishes in Round 1.<\/p>\n
For Schramm, the result was a maiden World Cup podium.<\/p>\n
ResultsRound 1Elite WomenSaya Sakakibara – 3rdSienna Pal – 6thTeya Rufus – 21stBella May – DNSElite MenJesse Asmus – 28thOli Moran – 34thHayden Fletcher (Individual) – 75thJye Moon (Individual) – 77thU23 MenJosh Jolly – 2ndJordan Callum – 33rdAustin McNair (Individual) – 99thU23 WomenBella Schramm (Individual) – 2ndCharli Guy (Individual) – 6thMia Webster (Individual) – 23rdRound 2Elite WomenSaya Sakakibara – 3rdSienna Pal – 9thTeya Rufus – 16thBella May – DNSElite MenOli Moran – 52ndJesse Asmus – 56thHayden Fletcher (Individual) – 61stJye Moon (Individual) – 81stU23 MenJordan Callum – 10thJosh Jolly – 12thAustin McNair (Individual) – 99thU23 WomenCharli Guy (Individual) – 9thBella Schramm (Individual) – 10thMia Webster (Individual) – 12th<\/p>\n
Feature picture: Navada Photography<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saya Sakakibara has started her UCI BMX Racing World Cup title defence strongly in France, winning Round 2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-722377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}