The 2021 BMX World Championships | Brilliant, but different …

Exhilarating racing, bubbles and Covid tests … We arrived at the Hotel Papendal bright and early on the Friday morning before the Worlds after catching a 5:30am flight from Dublin to Amsterdam, our first flight in almost two years. We wanted to be ready for a day of photographing the first official Worlds practice as it’s often when the best opportunities for interesting photos present themselves. Naively, we weren’t ready for what was to come …

After checking in, we were promptly directed to the UCI Covid testing location where we presented our ‘EU Covid Digital Certificate’, which is the official EU requirement for safe travel around the continent, legally accepted by all EU member states, of which the Netherlands is one. The cert was not accepted … a negative PCR test was required. All was explained in the email we got after our accreditation we were told; no such email was received, we politely explained. Nonetheless, there would be no track access today.

One Covid PCR test, €75 euros worse off and 24 hours later we returned to the test centre with our negative test result. Then a further test requirement, this time a rapid ‘Antigen Covid Test’, another negative test result, and we were in. Kind of …

The UCI photography access at the World Cups and World Championships is essentially divided into two levels of access, yellow and red. If given a ‘Yellow Bib’ you have limited access, usually along the outside of the of the berms and maybe along the first or last straight. The ‘Red Bib’ allows, pretty much, unrestricted access to the track, except for the start hill during racing. Obviously, the diversity of the shots you can get with the ‘Red Bib’ is exponentially increased, and since 2017 we have been extremely privileged, to have the access granted by the ‘Red Bib’ …

This time out, for some unexplained reason, we were allocated a ‘Yellow Bib’. After a couple of unsuccessful appeals … we thought, ‘no problem, we can make this work’, and we set off to the track for the second day of official practice. We scanned our pass into the Media room at the track, scan in, scan out, said our hellos, and made another couple of unsuccessful bib appeals. But we eagerly wanted to get out to the track for the second day of practice as we’d missed the first while waiting on test results. We were directed to the ‘Yellow Zones’, of which there where two, not the usual ‘yellow’ access. The first zone being an 8’ x 10’ (approx.) painted box along the outside of the last straight, about 40 meters past the finish line. Unfortunately, the view of the track was mostly obscured by barriers, TV camera crews, the brilliant medical teams and track maintenance crews. Not ideal for photographing BMX Racing. We moved on to the second Yellow Zone, an 8’ x 6’ (approx.) painted box on the outside of the exit of turn one … much better photo opportunities here, but again, extremely restrictive. What we’ve essentially ended up with is 1000’s of photos from four different angles, of which you probably won’t see many for fear of boring you all. Practice day in the ‘box’ was okay, race day was not. The occupancy swelled from a party of one, us, to a gathering of 6 at times, including a rather large, TV style video camera on a sturdy tripod … the box became affectionately known as the ‘box of covid’. Inevitably we strayed from the ‘box of covid’ on occasions only to be tapped on the shoulder and quickly put back in our box …

The pits too where off limits, no candid rider photo opportunities there. The media and the riders were in different bubbles, at the track anyway. In the daily covid testing centre, at the hotel, in the restaurant, same bubble.

While the ‘box of covid’ was restricting our creative photography desires it was a brilliant vantage point to watch the racing. And the racing was epic … freshly crowned Olympic Champions Niek Kimmann and Bethany Shriever looked Olympic quick, despite the obvious difficulty in finding motivation post Tokyo. Meybo had also delivered a gold bike for Niek … and we’d seen gold bikes backfire in the past. The bike, the home crowd and the Olympic medal all added up to a potential powder keg of pressure. Niek still looked quick …

Others looked fast too … Alise was quietly winning all her motos, Stancil looked to be on another level and both the Smulder sisters where clocking some of the fastest lap times of the day. Pajon, Reynolds, Baauw, Claessens … all on fire!

The men wouldn’t be any easier to separate. Both Graf and van Gendt looked very quick in what would be their last throw of the dice at Elite level BMX. Then there was Sylvain who looked blisteringly quick. The list went on and on … Mahieu looked like he was even faster than he was in Tokyo, Harmsen, also in his last Elite race, swept all his motos, and Daudet looked menacing … Butti, Kennedy, Pilard, Wood, Schotman, all oozing speed.

The crowds in the heaving stands were getting into it too … with the loudest cheers coming for every Dutch pass, every Dutch qualification, every Dutch rider … everything orange invoking a response.

Even the predicted torrential downpour capitulated and stayed away, giving way to some spells of sunshine and more importantly, a mostly windless day.

Kimmann though, dispite his fractured kneecap, was looking dominant, and all from lane eight. And not to be out done, Shriever was also getting familiar with lane eight too.

The first real shock of the day came in the men’s ¼’s with the defending World Champion, van Gendt exiting early. The women’s side of the draw went pretty much to plan until the semi-finals rolled around and the explosion just in front of the ‘box of covid’ … Valentino, Etienne and both Russians all getting caught up in it. Christensen and Olympic Bronze medallist Merel Smulders also finished their day in the semis.

The men’s semi-final’s also saw some unexpected exits. Daudet, despite looking good all day ended his run at the title and Harmsen left the sport with a spectacular somersault on the third straight.

When the finals rolled around and the final eight in each class took to the gate, it was Niek and Beth who ominously appeared in the outline lanes. When the women’s gate dropped, Shriever took a hard left and had a wheel in front of Stancil going into turn one. Claessens got stuck between Alise and Felicia and the three when down, hard. The race for first was already over, Shriever was gone, leaving Baauw and Smulders to fight over the W2 plate to the delight of the crowd. Consolidation of the Olympic and World title, a repeat of what Pajon achieved in 2016!

The men’s final didn’t quite produce the same drama as the women’s, but like Shriever, Kimmann came out charging with a hard left from eight. Almost a full bike length ahead of Andre at the end of straight one, with Graf tucking in behind them in third. The crowd erupted! And that’s the way it stayed. Kimmann, Andre and Graf. Like Strombergs before him, Kimmann wrapped up the two big titles in a single year. Andre, unbelievably making his fourth Worlds podium in a row … and Graf finished out an amazing career, matching his 2015 Worlds result on the podium. He left his shoes on the track and went to get a beer.

Despite the obstacles, despite the unfortunate lack of challenge racing, what the UCI achieved in Papendal cannot be underestimated. The covid restrictions, whether self-imposed or nationally imposed must have been immense. Even ignoring the racing element, the TV element, and the occasional disgruntled photographer, just to put in place daily Covid testing for all the riders, all the staff and all the media was a gargantuan task. We are glad there was an event at all …

But, we’re really hoping that 2022 in Nantes, France, sees a return to the World Championships of pre-covid … but we remember hoping the same thing for 2021 when Houston was cancelled …

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