KEY POINTS:
He has a Canadian drawl, tattooed arms and shades on his shaven head. But New Zealand BMX coach Ken Cools had a typically Kiwi response to yesterday's fourth place for medal hopeful Sarah Walker.
"As you Kiwis would say, I'm gutted," Cools said after Walker finished just over
one-tenths of a second off third place in the first Olympic BMX final.
Sure, the race was hard on the eight finalists, but Cools did it tough too. Not only did he have Walker in the final, he was also watching his sister, Sammy Cools.
Asked if the race, in which Sammy crashed out, had been hard to watch, Cools paused and said: "I need a beer ... Sarah's my athlete, Samantha's my sister and that's the way it's going to be. I train my athlete to the best she can possibly do and cheer my sister on to do the best that she can do."
Walker's result, behind French pair Anne-Caroline Chausson and Laetitia le Corguille, and American Jill Kintner, left New Zealand medal-less from an event which promised much after the qualifying rounds on Wednesday.
In the men's field, New Zealander Marc Willers was second seed going into the semifinals. But he missed the final after having three shocking runs. He crashed on the first corner in the first run, came eighth in the second, and crashed again in the third.
"I just wasn't clicking today and that's racing," said Willers, sporting a cork thigh and a bloody elbow. "Everything happens at once. It felt good, I was ready for it and just couldn't put it together."
He said the delay on Thursday because of the rain, had not made things easy.
"Everyone has been building up for five years for that one day and it rains and your brain just goes crazy. I tried to show up [at the Olympics] as just another race but I guess maybe it got to me, maybe it didn't. I don't know. It was just good to be a part of."
The men's gold was won by Maris Stromberg, of Latvia, with the US collecting silver and bronze to Mike Day and Donny Robinson. Walker said she was happy with her start in the final, but others had got away better.
"I got pushed out the back and tried to come in on that first corner, managed to pop into third and I was like, `All right, here we go'," she said.
But when Argentine rider Garbiela Diaz swerved inside her, they had to slow down and others flew past.
"With a lot of events you can kind of plan ahead and visualise the race," said Walker. "But with BMX you can't plan because so many things can happen so I was just thinking about getting a good start. There are so many things on the whole track that are in play and you've just got to make do with what you can."
She is already planning on being in London in four years' time to avenge that.