KEY POINTS:
For the highly publicised Sarah Walker it's finally time for actions to speak louder than words.
It's all been said about the laidback 20-year-old BMX rider from Kawerau, one of New Zealand's best known athletes in Beijing - now can it be done?
Walker has long been touted
as a genuine medal contender in Beijing, her profile no doubt embossed by the fact BMX is making its Olympic debut at the Laoshan cycling centre today, with Walker riding her seeding race. If form holds true, she is on track for Thuirsday's final.
Her world No 1 ranking has become the catalyst for thousands of column centimetres and glossy photo shoots. Walker was an automatic selection for the television advertising campaign showcasing the cream of New Zealand's Olympic talent - not even the twins made an impression.
Well, actually, Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell did. Walker was captivated watching their gold medal winning exploits at Shunyi.
If anyone could empathise with the double Olympic champions, it was Walker. Her sport is also a game of inches, millimetres even.
And she also felt for a sickly Mahe Drysdale's gallant bronze, knowing full well the best laid plans can unravel through no fault of your own.
She snoozed through Valerie Vili's virtuoso performance in the shotput circle: "We get up at seven, so I'm in bed by eight like a little girl," she said, denying a lack of patriotism.
Walker has been an early riser all week, especially on Monday when she was able to return to the Olympic track for the first time since a test event a year ago.
For Walker, it was just like riding her $6000 custom-made bike.
"I woke up at quarter to six ready to go - I love this track," she said.
Walker and New Zealand's male rider, Marc Willers, were in Taiyuan - the world champs venue in June - until last weekend, getting back in synch after three inactive waterlogged weeks back home.
The camp south of Beijing was perfectly timed: "You need a few hours on your bike before jumping on a track this big," she said, eyeing the 8m high start-ramp.
The expectations, of course, are just as steep, though Walker has cultivated a relaxed persona as she plots her course to tomorrow's medal race.
"All I can do is go out there, ride my bike, have fun and do my best. If that means I get a medal, that'd be perfect.
"If it doesn't, but I rode my best and had fun doing it, that's okay."
Though ranked No 1, Great Britain's Shanaze Reade looms as her greatest threat. French duo Anne-Caroline Chausson and Laetitia le Courguile are also dangerous but in the mad 35 second dash on the dirt, any of the eight finalists could get lucky.
That's the point of difference for Walker and New Zealand's gold-medal-winning sisterhood. Vili was never going to be shouldered out of her concrete domain mid-throw at the Bird's Nest; the twins were never going to collide with another skiff.
Walker's is a legitimate contact sport. The gloves are off when the helmets are on.
"It's a friendly sport really," she added. "I talk crap with the Canadian girl; we get along really well, which is good considering it could have been awkward."
After all, Sammy Cools' brother Ken just happens to be coaching Walker - against his own flesh and blood.
Cools joined Walker in March, a couple of months after Australian Grant White ditched the New Zealander to mentor Reade, the 19-year-old reigning world champion.
Walker, nonplussed at the time, has come to terms with it. Though Reade is not her "closest" rival, "she keeps to herself a bit".
Walker has time trials first up - two hot laps to determine lane placement for the three motos [semifinals].
Regardless of whether she actually lands on the podium later on Thursday, Walker will be reluctant to leave Laoshan.
"I'm going to ask if I can ride the track after it's all over as well. You might as well make the most of it."
- NZPA
