Repo + Photos: Effraim.

Sunday night I flew into Abu Dhabi for the UCI World Champs, with my trip to Japan last week for the Chimera A-side contest it feels like London Heathrow has become my second home.
This is my first time in Abu Dhabi, and after a smooth flight with Ethiad (also my first time flying with this airline). No issues with covid checks and wearing masks the flight was only six hours which felt like nothing compared to Japan the previous week.
Jamie Bestwick fresh from winning an Award at the BMX Hall of Fame the night before, was on the same flight. It was great to catch up with Jamie, and talk about the Bmx Hall of Fame, and the up and coming contest.

When we arrived at Abu Dhabi it was 12:50am, and a chilly 28 degrees! Heavy sarcasm here. After a quick taxi ride, Jamie dropped me off (thanks Jamie) before he went off to the Raddison where all the riders competing are staying.

Monday was a chill day, walking around taking in the scenery and checking the venue out a bit.
Riders accreditation and a team managers meeting, this is new thing for me to experience and really eye opening to see this.

Tuesday (today) I wanted to check out the pool and enjoy a little bit of relaxation time before the contest starts tomorrow. With a couple of riders pulling out, including the current UCI World Champion Matthias Dandois. Tomorrow will be 20 riders down to 12, semis is 12 down to 8 for the final on Friday!

Practise went down today from 1:30 till 8, both Women and Mens Elite classes. It was too hot to stay there all day, so I was in and out checking out all that’s going on. This afternoon I went into the team managers meeting for BMX park to get a feel what goes on in that discipline compared to flatland.

A few of the riders that floor is riding fast, and of course the heat is an issue. But that’s the same for everyone, qualifying is going down tomorrow at the hottest time of the day 1:30 till 5pm, today was 37c at 1pm!

The BBC are here to cover the event, looks like the final will be live coverage. I will try and find out more details so I can inform you all what the deal is. I was told no videos at this event (image rights), so I’ll be back to daily repos like this one for anyone wondering.

Practise was pretty chill from what I saw, four riders on the stage at a time. Great to see riders like Aude Cassagne, Toon Pakphum, Dustyn Alt and Jean William Prevost back in the mix at a UCI contest, tomorrow is going to be pretty exciting.

I’ll check back with updates, when I can. The site has been down for a bit with some macilous files stopping you commenting, and some further issues resulted from the clean up operation. But we are back, bug shout to Martin Northern for siring the site out!

The post Repo: First Days in Abu Dhabi/ UCI World Champs 2022 first appeared on Flat Matters Online.