NOS Cycling•yesterday, 11:59 PM
BMXer Niek Kimmann won a gold medal at the World Cup competitions in Tulsa, USA, just like on Saturday; it is his fifteenth World Cup victory of his career. Laura Smulders and Manon Veenstra were unable to win a medal among the women.
Kimman was away at lightning speed in the final on Sunday and quickly opened up a gap with the competition, but the closer he got to the finish, the more he was threatened by Izaac Kennedy from Australia. At the finish the Dutchman only had enough margin left.
‘I couldn’t really celebrate’
“This feels great. I also won yesterday, but you can’t really celebrate that and go home. I just won all my races today.”
With the victories in Tulsa, Kimmann is once again doing something he was unable to achieve for a long time. Win two games in one weekend. “I have the double. I haven’t been able to do that since 2019, I think. So that’s nice.”
The 2020 Olympic champion finishes third in the World Cup rankings.
Veenstra just misses the medal
Manon Veenstra just missed out on a new medal in the women’s category. She won silver on Saturday, but she had a much more difficult time on Sunday.
Veenstra came back into the race from a difficult position, but fell just short of a medal: she finished fourth. Veenstra finishes second in the World Cup rankings, behind the Australian Saya Sakakibara.
Laura Smulders was also in the final, but she was soon too far back and could not play a significant role.
The gold went, just like on Saturday, to Sakakibara. The silver and bronze went to Alise Willoughby from the US and Australia’s Sienna Pal.
