Location: Perry Park BMX Track, Birmingham
Event: 24-26 May 2013
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The 2013 British BMX Series surpasses the halfway mark this weekend with rounds four and five at Birmingham’s Perry Park track.
With each rider’s best seven results from the nine rounds counting to their final total, by Sunday evening the standings should begin to illustrate the key contenders for overall honours in each respective category.
The Perry Park track, built as part of the legacy from the 2012 UCI BMX World Championships held in Birmingham, has previously hosted the European BMX Championships and will be the venue for the 2013 British BMX Championships from the 23 - 25 August.
Great Britain’s Liam Phillips – winner of the two rounds in Birmingham in the 2012 series - and Shanaze Reade are set to miss the event coming just two weeks after the UCI BMX Supercross second instalment in Santiago del Estero, Argentina.
Highlights of rounds two and three at Kent's Cyclopark
British Cycling Olympic Academy Programme duo Curtis Manaton and Kyle Evans are currently in first and second respectively in the elite men’s standings, but as the pair contested last weekend’s UEC BMX Euro Series rounds five and six in Germany they are unlikely to race in the Midlands.
The absences would hand under 16 world champion Quillan Isidore, part of British Cycling’s Olympic Development Programme, the prospect to leapfrog the pair from third though he will face a stern examination from his Great Britain Cycling Team colleagues.
Fourth place Tre Whyte and Grant Hill, fifth, could both theoretically lead the standings if results went their way and with neither having won a round so far Perry Park could be the opportune moment to record an initial victory.
Ryan Stack and Daniel McBride, also from the Great Britain setup, complete the top seven.
An interactive look at the Perry Park track
The championship female class is equally as exciting with a number of permutations possibly and just 40 points separating the top five riders.
Highly rated youngsters Charlotte Green and Valerie Zebrokova occupy the top two spots. British Cycling Olympic Development Programme athlete Green won round two at Kent’s Cyclopark and can draw nearer to the overall title having ended 2012 in second behind teammate Abbie Taylor.
Taylor, currently fourth overall after missing round one in Manchester, will hope to emulate 2012 when she won both rounds when the series visited Perry Park. She already has one triumph to her name, coming in the last round.
Ahead of Taylor is Gosport BMX Club’s Ayesha McLelland. The 19-year-old can put pressure on the leading two if she can usurp them on the Saturday’s and Sunday’s podiums.
Joey Gough and Bethany Campbell are within a mountable distance of the top five – rounded off by Bethany Shriever – though the gap is finely poised with events in Birmingham likely to be decisive one way or another.
