Nyhaug misses BMX final by a single point
Not many cyclists win a race, and then hang their head over their handlebar just beyond the finish line, crushed in disappointment.
But that is BMX racing, where sometimes what you’ve done lately is not enough.
Tory Nyhaug, a 20-yearold from Coquitlam, B.C., won the fifth and final run of his Heat 2 grouping, and yet — excruciatingly — missed out on reaching the semifinals by one lousy point.
“I won the last lap, I’m really proud of myself, I fought the whole day and it just didn’t work out,” Nyhaug said.
“The racing was crazy, everyone’s going fast. I had a lot of fun, but I’m pretty disappointed not to make it through,” he said. “I have no regrets ... this is probably the coolest race I’ve been a part of. I’m going to remember it forever.”
Cool, indeed. Oh, a penny for Pierre de Coubertin’s thoughts if the founder of the modern Olympic Games were alive to see BMX, with its pulsating music, rainbow-coloured jerseys, crash helmets and crashing bodies.
First time viewers imagined The Hunger Games. What a spectacle. To the delight of a sun-drenched crowd, nearly every heat featured a spectacular crash, bodies catapulting over handlebars, bikes flying off from riders as if fired from a launcher. In the third heat of the first run, seven riders crashed at once, a domino special with one rider tumbling, the six behind him crashing overtop. To their credit, all seven got up and finished the heat.
“Crashing is part of the sport,” Nyhaug said. “It sucks when it happens, but that’s the way it is.”
A couple of unlucky breaks put Nyhaug in catch-up mode early. After finishing third in his first run, Nyhaug crashed in the second when he clipped the rear wheel of Dutch rider Jelle van Gorkom, who lost his balance in front him. Nyhaug suffered scrapes and bruises, but nothing like the sort of race injuries that caused him to have his spleen removed just two months ago.
Of course, Nyhaug will be back for more, vowing to return for the 2016 Games in Rio.