FIELDS REALIZES HIS GOLDEN DREAM

RIO DE JANEIRO — In April, Connor Fields posted a photo of himself on Twitter. He is lying on his back in a hospital, his shattered left wrist laying gingerly across his chest, his right hand covering his face.

Four months later in Rio, he had his right hand on his heart.

The BMX cyclist based out of the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista did Friday what he couldn’t four years ago, converting all that talent and drive into a gold medal on Rio’s green track to punctuate a redemptive day for the U.S. team after being skunked in 2012.

Alise Post was the silver medalist in the women’s race behind Colombia’s Mariana Pajon, who also won in London and became her country’s first double gold medalist in any sport to the approval of a deliriously partisan Colombian crowd at Centro Olimpico de BMX.

Fields knows the feeling of coming home empty. He won five of his six preliminary heats as a 19-year-old in London to claim the No. 1 seeding in the final, then finished seventh.

As he was pushing his bike up the hill to the start gate Friday, Sean Dwight, his Australian coach, leaned into his ear and said: “Remember that feeling you had in London? Here’s your chance. Go take it.”

Said Fields: “That kind of a lit a fire under me.”

Said Dwight: “There might have been a few swear words in there that you can’t print.”

After 2012, Fields and Dwight had a falling out, but they reunited in time to prepare for Rio.