Pedestal. In the BMX Supercross World Cup, newcomer Veronika Monika Stūriška (from the right) finished third overall. PHOTO: uci.org
If the BMX Cup season in Latvia will only start this weekend, the BMX Supercross World Cup has already ended. It was a quick and short season. This is largely due to the Paris Olympics, which are no longer over the hills.
The battle for points and places took place in six stages this year, with the fifth and sixth stages taking place in the USA last weekend. Two of our athletes also started – Veronika Monika Stūriška in the U23 group and Vineta Pētersone, who starts in the elite group.
The past week was full of challenges for Veronika, as she suffered a heavy fall during training, but the athlete was determined to fight. She started the fifth stage very convincingly, winning the first race, securing a place in the semi-finals. There was a very fierce competition between three riders, fighting for third place, Veronika’s fourth place at the finish and a place in the grand final. It turned out to be quite dramatic, because four riders experienced a fall in the first corner, our athlete managed to avoid it, which opened up opportunities to fight for the podium, but she did not succeed, and Veronika crossed the finish line fourth. This allowed her to move up to third place in the World Cup standings before the final stage.
Veronika started the final stage with fourth place in the first race, entering the semi-finals. True, she did not manage to overcome this limit, she took sixth place in the semi-finals, but Veronika managed to keep third place in the World Cup overall. Meanwhile, in the UCI ranking, she is in first place in the U23 group.
In the women’s elite, Vineta Peterson did not do so well. In the first round, she only took eighth place, which forced her to fight for two places to the quarterfinals in the race of the last hope. In an intense battle in the competition of eight participants, Vineta finished only in fourth place, which prevented her from continuing the fight for prizes at this stage.
In the last stage, Vineta Pētersonie managed to enter the quarter-finals, but she failed to finish at least in the fourth place, and the last stage of the World Cup ended in the 18th place. She is only 26th in the overall standings of the World Cup.
The World Cup is over, but all the main sporting events are still ahead. On May 12, the BMX World Championship will be held in the USA, which will most likely also determine whether and how many Latvian riders will be represented in Paris.
