Rotorua BMX rider Sarah Walker has won an Olympic silver medal in the women's BMX.
The 24-year-old sneaked her way into the final after struggling in the semis, but her New Zealand team mate Marc Willers missed out failing to make the men's final.
Walker ran a near perfect race
in the final, getting out of the gate first equal with eventual winner Colombian Mariana Pajon. By the first corner Pajon had a slight lead over Walker with the French woman Magalie Pottier chasing hard in third.
As the lead group went through the tunnel Walker's training partner Netherlands' Laura Smulders over took Pottier and Walker.
But the former Kawerau South School pupil dug deep and pushed past Smulders to retake second for the final rhythm section of the course. Smulders came back at Walker but she held off the challenge to push on and take the silver medal.
It was a stark contrast from her semifinals where she only just sneaked into the final after finishing fifth, fourth and third respectively.
Walker said she had to focus on her start when it came to the final.
"I just focused on my gate start cause that's kind of where I lacked in the first race. So it kind of made me refocus, getting a bad first race out of the way and just improve from there and [it] just gave me the drive.
"After that first one, I was quite disappointed in myself, it was almost the wakeup call that I needed, to refocus and get back on that gate and just nail it."
Willers chances of making the men's BMX final were dashed in his first race of three semifinal races, when he crashed while in second place. The 26-year-old appeared to be struggling with an injury in the second race, coming last and pulled out of the third race, eliminating him from the final.
Results:
Women's BMX finals: 1 Mariana Pajon (Colombia), 37.706; 2 Sarah Walker (New Zealand), 4 38.133; 3 Laura Smulders (Netherlands), 38.231
