Lauren Reynolds’ fourth Olympics ends in heartbreak with semifinal exit in women’s BMX race

A fourth Olympic campaign for Lauren Reynolds ended in heartbreak, with the Bunbury product falling agonisingly short of making the final of the women’s BMX race. After progressing through the quarter-finals, Reynolds looked in good shape to qualify for the final after solid runs in the first two heats of the semifinal, finishing third and fourth. But disaster struck in the third heat, when she was forced wide on the middle straight and had to bail out of the track, resorting to a slip lane. Any finish better than last would have seen Reynolds progress but the stroke of misfortune meant she fell short, finishing 10th and failing to qualify for the eight-rider final. Reynolds made history at the Games, becoming only the fifth BMX rider to compete in four Olympics and, alongside teammate Rebecca Henderson, only the third Australian cyclist in any discipline, alongside the legendary Anna Meares. The final was won by Reynolds’ compatriot Saya Sakakibara, who capped off a dominant campaign in which she won each of her seven races. In one of the best stories of Paris, Sakakibara, who was stretchered off the track after a crash in the Tokyo semifinal, claimed the country’s first ever BMX racing gold medal with her brother Kai, a former rider who was left with a traumatic brain injury after a crash, in the stands cheering her on.