José Torres Gil makes BMX history for Argentina during ‘best final ever’ at Paris Olympics
CNN
Triumph and tragedy are everywhere you look at the Olympics, and the men’s BMX park final on Wednesday had a surfeit of both.
Triumph and tragedy are everywhere you look at the Olympics, and the men’s BMX park final on Wednesday had a surfeit of both. For tragedy, see how the pre-competition favorites – Australia’s defending champion Logan Martin and France’s home favorite Anthony Jeanjean – were at various points left sprawled on the canvass following dramatic crashes, a brutal reminder of the sport’s do-or-die nature. Martin crashed on both of his runs, his title defense wilting in the Paris heat, while Jeanjean recovered superbly on his second run to take a hard-earned bronze medal. As for the triumph, take José Torres Gil, the Argentinian rider who won his country’s first individual gold medal in a cycling discipline with a stunning initial score of 94.82. “I couldn’t understand it, total craziness, it brought tears to my eyes,” was how Torres Gil explained hearing that he would be crowned Olympic champion at the Place de la Concorde, the temporary home of the Urban Sports Park. Great Britain’s Keiran Reilly took silver after packing trick after trick into his second run, hauling himself above Jeanjean with the final act of the competition. As he threw his bike across the boarded floor and dropped to his knees in exhaustion, you knew he had given all he could.