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British Cycling Olympic BMX coach Grant White expects Great Britain’s riders to seize the occasion as they head to the final round of the UCI BMX Supercross in Chula Vista.
World champion Liam Phillips plus British Cycling Olympic Academy riders Kyle Evans, Tre Whyte and Dan McBride have been selected and White is seeking strong performances on the last major stop of 2013.
“For us it’s another world cup,” White said. “It’s the last one in the season but in essence it’s not really different to any other world cup. It’s another opportunity.”
Liam Phillips and Kyle Evans return to the international front after world championship appearances in Auckland, New Zealand. Newly crowned British champion Dan McBride makes his third world cup appearance having competed in Manchester and Papendal.
After an elbow injury sustained on the first day in Papendal cut short Tre Whyte’s weekend in the Netherlands, a full recovery means the 19-year-old will get the chance to ride in California.
“The academy guys who raced the last one in Papendal that are going to this event that haven’t been on the stage since then,” Whyte said.
“Tre Whyte and Dan McBride, they’ve had a really good block of training very similar to what they had prior to the April world cup that we had here so that’s a great opportunity for them to now step back up.
“They’ve made good developments in training to see if they can put that into practice in the race.
“Then we’ve got Kyle, he’s had the world championships in-between Papendal and Chula Vista. He learned quite a bit from the worlds. It’s great that he hasn’t had too long to wait to put those lessons into practice and see if he can make positive changes from the world championships.”
Phillips, whose victories at the championships and world cup both came at indoor venues, failed to reach the finals at outdoor tracks at Santiago del Estero and Papendal.
The United States Olympic Training Centre in California is home to two open-air BMX tracks, replicas of the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics Games courses, with the latter set for use this weekend.
“I guess if you look there were two indoor races he won and two outdoor races where he wasn’t as strong in the end but I think there is more to it than that,” White said.
“To be honest he could have made those mistakes indoor, I don’t think it’s as black and white as indoor-outdoor. In BMX there is a fine margin. I think Liam can go and perform quite well at Chula Vista regardless of being indoors or outdoors.
“The training, you know mentally the indoor races will be different, but the training it’s not massively different, you need the fitness to back up lap after lap. It doesn’t change things between night and day.”
