Cameron Wood Captures First BMX Racing World Cup Win In Bogota

Cameron Wood standing on the podium after winning the UCI Men's BMX Cycling World Cup Final on Sept. 25, 2022 in Bogota, Colombia,

Starting in a UCI BMX World Cup final for the second straight day Sunday in Bogota, Colombia, U.S. racer Cameron Wood was primed to go really fast.
Wood charged out of the starting gate, led the pack by the first turn and blasted away to his first career win in elite world cup competition.
“Unbelievable feeling,” said Wood, a 20-year-old from Avondale, Arizona.
Both Wood and three-time Olympian Alise Willoughby reached the podium in world cup races Saturday and Sunday in Bogota. Wood also finished second in Saturday’s final, and Willoughby had third- and second-place finishes.
Wood, who finished ninth at the world championships in July, has now medaled in his last three world cup races. He began the streak with a second-place finish in June at the Round 4 race in Papendal, Netherlands.
On Sunday, Wood finished second in his quarterfinal race and qualified for the final with a fourth-place finish in the semifinals. In the final, he burst from the starting gate explosively and won the race in 32.725 seconds, beating three-time Olympian Joris Daudet of France to the finish line by nearly a half second.
“The starts have been good all weekend,” Wood said. “I was able to execute another one.”
Willoughby, a two-time world champion from St. Cloud, Minnesota, battled another three-time Olympian, Laura Smulders of the Netherlands, all weekend. The 31-year-old Willoughby finished second behind Smulders in the women’s final Sunday, which came one day after Willoughby captured her first world cup podium finish of the year with a third-place finish Saturday. Olympic champion Beth Shriever of Great Britain won Saturday’s race ahead of Smulders and Willoughby, then finished last in Sunday’s final.
Willoughby, a silver medalist in the Olympic Games Rio 2016, finished fourth at this year’s world championships.
The final two rounds of the world cup season, Rounds 7 and 8, will held next weekend in Bogota.