Olympics-French BMX Freestyle champion hopes for a dry ramp

PARIS - BMX Freestyle, in which riders perform hair-raising stunts, is a sunshine sport, born in California, but in a rainy Paris, athletes were desperately hoping for a dry day.

Training sessions at the BMX Freestyle venue on Paris' historic Place de la Concorde were cancelled because of rain two days in a row and during the opening ceremony on Friday, the sport missed an opportunity to shine on the world stage as a floating BMX platform on the river Seine remained unused because of rain-drenched ramps.

"We ride on wooden surfaces, and when these are humid it is way too dangerous, we would slip right away," said France's Anthony Jeanjean, 26, who is top the BMX Freestyle Park UCI World Cup rankings.

The men's Olympic skateboarding competition was postponed on Friday because of rain but the men's cycling time trial went ahead under relentless drizzle.

"The weather should be on our side in the coming days," Jeanjean told reporters.

A four-time European championship medallist, Jeanjean finished seventh in the inaugural BMX freestyle event at the Tokyo 2020 Games, but is a favourite to win on home soil this year.

Jeanjean will face defending Olympic freestyle champion Martin Logan of Australia, as well as Britain's Kieran Reilly and Japan's Rimu Nakamura, but his biggest challenge may be to be a match for France's BMX racing athletes.

France has dominated BMX racing, amassing 50 gold medals in all classes at the world championships since 1982, although this has not translated into similar success at the Olympics.

"Our BMX racing colleagues have dominated their discipline for years, I was in Tokyo with them, we share a lot and I am inspired by them," Jeanjean said.

France's other freestyle competitor, Laury Perez, a four-time French freestyle champion and first-time Olympian, faces a different challenge: the rise of China's women riders.

While US rider Hannah Roberts tops the UCI freestyle women's ranking, numbers two and three are Chinese, and China is the highest-ranked freestyle nation ahead of the US and Australia.

Chinese female riders - trained by Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist Daniel Dhers of Venezuela - took the three podium spots at the Shanghai qualifier in May, and in Paris Perez will face Sun Jiaqi and Deng Yawen.

"In the past two years I see them more and more at events. They are very good competitors," Perez said.