The International Cycling Union (UCI) confirmed the five places that were obtained by the Colombia ‘Colombiana’ BMX Racing Team, after the completion of the Olympic qualification process, in which the team led by Fabio Peña was awarded three places in men and two in women, for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
These Olympic places were achieved after our country finished in second place in the Olympic ranking of nations in the men’s branch, with 12,519 points, and in fifth place in the women’s branch, with 10,195.
After meeting the criteria established by the National BMX Commission and the Colombian Cycling Federation, the two places in the female branch were assigned to Mariana Pajón and Gabriela Bolle, the athletes who achieved the best performances in the classification process and who were They are in the two best positions in the ranking, after adding 5,702 points and 3,017 units, respectively.
In the men’s branch, the places were assigned to: Carlos Ramírez, the double Olympic medalist in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, who added a total of 4,721 points and was the best Colombian in the Olympic ranking; Diego Arboleda, current national champion, who achieved 4,651 units and last season led the UCI world ranking in the elite category, and Mateo Carmona, third national athlete in the ranking with a score of 3,147.
It should be noted that Colombia, which has six Olympic medals in its history, will have the largest BMX Racing delegation in Paris 2024 with five cyclists. Only the United States and the Netherlands match that figure.
It will be the first time that Colombia will have two representatives in the women’s branch of BMX Racing in an edition of the Olympic Games, a discipline in which Mariana Pajón accumulates two gold medals (London 2012 and Rio 2016) and one silver (Tokyo 2020)
In the men’s category, it will be the second time that our country will have three Olympic places, after those obtained in Beijing 2008, an event in which Sergio Salazar, Augusto Castro and Andrés Jiménez (who finished in fourth place) competed.
The BMX Racing competitions at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will be held on August 1 and 2 at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines BMX Stadium.
In the coming weeks, the classification process in BMX Freestyle will be closed, a modality in which Colombia seeks to secure a female spot in the park modality.
