Frenchman Joris Daudet became BMX Racing world champion on Saturday in Rock Hill, in the United States, less than three months before the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. This is the third world title for Daudet, 33, after those of 2011 and 2016. Another Frenchman, Sylvain André, took third place.
“I knew I could do it, despite a complicated start to the season. That’s so many hours of work for a race of just thirty seconds. It’s a beautiful day,” said Daudet, who has just returned from a broken collarbone. The Frenchman, star of his discipline and who built a large part of his career in the United States, flew over the competition by winning his quarter-final, his semi-final and the final on Saturday.
He succeeds his compatriot Romain Mahieu, winner last year in Glasgow where the Blues achieved a historic treble and who was eliminated in the semi-finals this time.
Daudet, André and Mahieu should be the three French people selected to compete for medals in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines during the Paris Olympics on August 2. France is, among men, the world’s leading nation in this sport. Alone in the running among the women, Axelle Etienne fell on Saturday in the quarter-finals by hitting a protective cushion.
For the men, there were six at the start, five in the quarter-finals, four in the semi-finals and two in the final for two medals in the end, including the best. In Paris, they will be keen to erase the disillusionment of Tokyo-2020 where they were three in the final for zero medals at the end. In 2016 too, things went badly, especially for Joris Daudet who had just won the world title three months earlier but was eliminated by a fall in the quarter-finals.
While Daudet and Mahieu, who dominate BMX, practically had their ticket in their pocket even before these Worlds, Sylvain André, 2018 world champion, undoubtedly definitively validated his selection thanks to his bronze medal on Saturday.