The long-awaited medal for co-favorite Zoé Claessens, a 4th and 7th place for Cédric Butti and Simon Marquart: the Swiss BMX riders experience a historic evening with great emotions.
Zoé Claessens could hardly believe her luck. "To be honest, I haven't really realized it yet. I can hardly believe that I actually won the bronze medal," she tries to put her feelings into words for the media before she is whisked away for the award ceremony. With the medal around her neck, it should slowly dawn on her that she has achieved something historic - namely the first Swiss Olympic medal in BMX racing.
It's actually a medal with an announcement, Claessens has been part of the elite for several years, and she stood on the podium at the 2022 and 2024 World Championships. But the last few days have not gone quite as planned. The 23-year-old from Vaud seemed tense, didn't really get going and "smuggled" her way through the individual rounds more badly than well.
Final tactics worked
Even in the semi-finals on Friday evening, she got off to a slow start with a 5th place in the first run. "The semi-finals really weren't my best," Claessens admitted afterwards. "In the final, I put all my eggs in one basket and chose the outside lane 8 so that I could go all the way." The plan worked perfectly. The Swiss athlete was in a podium position from the very first meters.
She had no chance against the superior winner Saya Sakakibara from Australia, but second-placed Manon Veenstra almost caught her. "I made a few mistakes on the home straight, I was just too nervous." All the greater was Claessens' joy at winning bronze in the end, which she showed with a broad smile. "That was a dream of mine."
Swiss men without racing luck
Cédric Butti missed out on this medal by one place. "I'm proud of my performance," said the man from Thurgau. "The goal was the final, and I achieved that. But then to miss out on the medal by such a narrow margin is already a shame. already." It still hurts a little at the moment, "but the bronze for Zoé is a plaster on the heart."
Butti was only beaten by the three Frenchmen. Right at the start, he lost crucial ground to the frenetically cheered locals, who were admired by President Emmanuel Macron. Surprisingly, Butti thought he was "a little too relaxed because I had nothing to lose." From the first bend onwards, he actually did everything right.
Simon Marquart also reached the final and finished seventh after having to take evasive action due to a rider crashing. "I don't know if it would have been enough otherwise," said the Zurich rider, not looking for excuses. "It's just a shame that I couldn't complete my race.
Never before had a Swiss rider, man or woman, reached the final in a BMX racing race at the Olympics, and now three of them. The fact that the French dominated like this speaks for their strength, but also for their home advantage. In contrast to previous games, no new track was built for the Olympics, but the existing one at the French performance center in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines was used - with only slight modifications.
Although other nations have also been able to train on it, this has cost a lot of money and involved long journeys. The Swiss were even better off than other nations from South America or Oceania. This home advantage paid off in the men's event, while Zoé Claessens and others beat the "Bleus" in the women's event.
SDA
