Bethany Shriever marked the return of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup with a semi-final showing on the opening day of action at Rock Hill.

Round seven of high-octane race action marked the first World Cup outing since June and Shriever was keen to make up for lost time, narrowly missing out on the main event in the United States.

The Brit’s night got under way in perfect fashion, coming out of gate three to take second place in her first-round ride, taking her straight through to the 1/8 round.

Things were to get better too as Shriever made the most of her favourable gate to storm to the line in the next race, a time of 33.904 seconds the fourth best in the field at this stage.

The 1/4 race was a similarly-impressive affair too, making it back-to-back race wins with victory by more than 0.4 seconds to take her place in the semi-final – just one race away from going for the podium.

But that was to be as good as it got for Shriever, a World Championship semi-finalist who has made the same stage in four of her last five World Cup rounds.

Closed out on the opening straight, the pace of the race ensured it was always going to be tough to catch up in the semi-final, crossing the line in eighth to bring her night to an end.

Evans, Isidore and Sharrock miss out

British representation didn’t stop there with Paddy Sharrock, Kyle Evans and Quillan Isidore all taking to the start gate in the men’s elite race.

Evans was among those cruising through the first round, his time of 35.078 seconds in the final heat seeing him ease through in second place after making the most of his gate one position.

Isidore and Sharrock had more indirect routes to the next round with both needing to qualify via the last chance races, though the pair did more than enough to make it a hat-trick of British riders in the 1/16 stage.

From there luck eluded the trio, with Isidore falling by the narrowest of margins having looked strong for large parts of his race.

Fifth place also struck Evans, unable to find room in a field featuring three national champions, while Sharrock’s night ended at the same stage.

All four British riders will be back in action on Saturday night in the United States, with Rock Hill completing its BMX Supercross World Cup double-header.