Four wins puts Olympic hopes back on track

Kurt Pickard re-inked his Olympic credentials at Cambridge at the weekend, but it's his upcoming overseas campaign that'll be the true test of his London ambitions.

Pickard, 20, dominated the weekend's BMX UCI Olympic qualifying event in Cambridge, making amends for a slight slip-up on Saturday with an impressive quartet of wins on the track on Sunday.

Pickard dominated the motos on Saturday before making a mistake on a jump to fade to fourth in the final. But he again won all three motos on Sunday and blitzed the final to earn valuable Olympic qualifying points.

"I came up a bit too low on one of the jumps which screwed me up for the rest of the straight, so in [Sunday's final] I was pretty keen not to muck up.

"It was only a small race in the overall scheme but good mental practice for getting myself out in front of the pack and staying there."

Pickard and the other BikeNZ high performance riders now go into a training camp this week, based at the Millennium Institute but riding at the new elite track in Pukekohe, before planning the start of their international season, with World Cup supercross events in the US and Europe ahead of the world championships in Birmingham.

Pickard will also ride in Canberra at the end of the month and train with the Aussie national squad prior to leaving for San Diego and the first World Cup event of the year at Chula Vista, a track Pickard knows well.

The Tauranga BMX star, who boasts 13 national titles, was a quarter-finalist in the world championships last year and needs to perform in the next few months to show the New Zealand Olympic Committee he's worth taking to the London games.

New Zealand has already qualified two men's and women's BMX spots, with Marc Willers and Sarah Walker shoo-ins after their international results in 2011. The final team won't be confirmed until after the UK world champs.

Pickard is accumulating some good Olympic qualifying points but knows the NZOC will be more interested in his performances overseas than at domestic meets.

"I know I can put it together.

"Even though I'm doing okay in the [UCI] ranking races it's all in proportion to the scale of the races so the World Cups will be worth a lot more."

With two spots already qualified, Pickard realistically needs another quarter-final finish at the world champs and two strong results at the World Cup races in San Diego and Norway next month to put himself in the frame.

"I'm not exactly sure what they [NZOC] are looking for ...

"The NZOC could send me to London on 2016 potential but I want to get overseas, make some finals, hopefully some podiums and qualify this year."