The BikeNZ riders are not getting ahead of themselves when they contest the UJCI BMX World Championships in Birmingham tomorrow.
Despite the London competition only 10 weeks away, Beijing Olympians Marc Willers and Sarah Walker have their sights firmly fixed on this weekends competition.
There are 14 New Zealanders, mostly from the BikeNZ High Performance squad, competing in elite competition which gets underway tomorrow evening local time, something new for all riders.
Weve been altering our clocks a bit to get up a little later and doing our training later to get our bodies in tune with competing at night, said BikeNZ national Ken Cools.
Usually we are done and dusted in the late afternoon but indoors here we will be racing until 10pm.
The compact and relatively mellow nature of the track at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham will be a mixed blessing for this weekends competition.
Willers really thrives on big circuits with long first straights and technical difficulty, and in reality so does Sarah. But it is quite tight here and it will be fast but compact racing so theres bound to be lots of contact, said Cools.
On the other hand Sarah is coming back from her shoulder problem and therefore a more mellow track may help her in that respect.
The Californian-based Willers enjoys racing but will put extra emphasis on tomorrows time trial for qualifying.
Its quite tight and compact here. The inside line is definitely going to be important and the pick of the draw will be dependent on time trial times. So I will be trying to lay down a good time, Willers said.
Usually I do not get too concerned at time trials because I dont mind who I come up against in the motos and the lane draw is not quite as critical.
Willers (Cambridge) said his focus is firmly on this weekend.
All the best riders are here. Its a world championships and I have all my focus on it. I will worry about that other competition after this.
Neither is he dwelling on last year when he led in the final before making an elementary mistake on a minor jump and had to settle for the bronze.
This is a new competition. What has happened has gone and I cant change that. Its a matter of going out there and doing it.
Meanwhile Walker is hoping her horror run of injuries, which has seen her race sparingly over the last six months,is finally behind her.
Ive been riding my bike for the past week and building up my confidence, working on getting my jumping back and feeling good on my bike again, Walker said.
Come race day it will only be six weeks since I dislocated my shoulder so its pretty good to be here and be ready for a world championships.
Theres a lot of pressure on. Theres a lot riding on this weekend. Its important to put in a good performance regardless of the situation and focus on getting everything right.
I know the starts will be important here and Ive tried to get as much time on the gates as possible. Its sore with my shoulder doing the gate but not bad enough to affect getting a good gate. A little bit of pain is nothing if I can get a good result and race really well.
Walker won the world championships in Adelaide in 2009 and finished runner-up last year, pipped in the final by young Argentinean Mariana Pajon.
The championship forms the final event to qualify for Olympic points with Walker keen to maximize her opportunities given she has missed out on qualifying events since the end of last season.
Taurangas Kurt Pickard is another coming back from injury after a painful crash at the same Supercross World Cup in Norway that Walker dislocated her shoulder. He too has made a strong recovery and is chipper about his chances this weekend.
I left Norway in a wheelchair but by the time I arrived home I was already able to put some weight on it. I made a really fast recovery and have been back on my bike for a few weeks now, said Pickard, who will challenge strongly for the expected second mens spot for London.
To be truthful, I am feeling as good on the bike as I have for a long time, Pickard said. May be the break was what I needed.
I am a good starter usually so this should help me here. I am just focussing on laying down a good qualifying and taking it from there.
The age groups from 15 years and up will contest the Challenge racing in the morning before practice for the elites in the afternoon. The time trial qualification takes place in the evening with the top 64 men and 32 women progressing to elimination racing on Sunday (NZ time). The top 15 riders will contest the Super Time Trials which also carries an official world championship rainbow jersey.
The BikeNZ team is:
Elite, women: Sarah Walker (Rotorua), Victoria Hill (New Plymouth).
Elite men: Marc Willers (Cambridge), Kurt Pickard (Tauranga), Kurt James (Cambridge), Daniel Franks (Christchurch), Derrick Mellish (Australia), Matt Cameron (New Plymouth), Nick Fox (Gisborne),
