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Bethany Shriever laid down a marker just three months after suffering a broken collarbone to underline her status as the favourite to defend her Olympic BMX racing title.
The 25-year-old from Leytonstone was something of a shock winner of this event in Tokyo three years ago, defeating Mariana Pajon, the double Olympic champion in the process.
That gave her the confidence that she could challenge and beat the best in the world, adding a pair of World Championships golds and a European title in the three years since. She relinquished that world title in Rock Hill in May, breaking a collarbone as she crashed in the semi-finals.
But Shriever has recovered and looks to be unstoppable after cruising to three wins in as many runs at Paris 2024.
Her main challenge looks to be from Australian Saya Sakakibara, who was fractionally faster than Shriever on each run, but never in the same heat.
World champion Alise Willoughby, who took advantage of Shriever’s fall earlier this year, matched Shriever and Sakakibara in winning each of her heats, albeit not quite as quickly.
Shriever said: “It couldn’t have gone any better. I’m just here to enjoy myself in the race every second. The fact it is going this well is just a bonus. I’m loving every second, my friends and family are here so it’s extremely special.
“It’s mental, I had Axelle (Etienne of France) in two of my motos, the crowd was going crazy. I was expecting it, the French love BMX so it’s getting recognition and the hype it deserves.”
In Tokyo, Shriever’s gold Olympics medal was immortalised as she was raised into the air by silver medallist Kye Whyte, and he kept his chances of getting back onto the podium once again.
Now, 24, Whyte was forced to battle much harder than Shriever, finishing fifth, third and then fourth in his three runs.
The second of those was the most dramatic, with Mateo Carmona Garcia of Colombia and Jaymio Brink of the Netherlands crashing in front of Whyte. He managed to avoid the pair of them and snuck through for an all-important third place.
Those performances were good enough for 10th overall, while home fans will be excited by the fact that the top trio were all representing France, Sylvain Andre leading the way.
However, Whyte will have to recover before the medals are decided on Friday, revealing that he has been struggling with a back injury that left him in considerable pain at the end of the evening.
He said: “It wasn’t the way I wanted to (perform) at all. For the past seven weeks, I’ve been really struggling to ride my bike because of back issues and the one day it decides to come back is today.
“I’m in a lot of pain, I don’t have much strength to come out of the start with because it’s my back and coming down my leg. I’m trying my hardest to make sure I got into the top four to qualify. For now, it’s back to the physio to see what we can do to make it better.
“My back is really messed up so I didn’t want to crash. I was just trying to stay safe and qualify.”
::Aldi are proud Official Partners of Team GB & ParalympicsGB, supporting all athletes through to Paris 2024
