Corby's Adrenaline Alley BMX Olympians going for gold tonight

Corby's Team GB's Freestyle BMX duo who train at Adrenaline Alley, will go for Olympic gold in the early hours of Sunday morning in a debut for the sport at the Tokyo games.

Charlotte Worthington, 25, who lives in Corby, and team mate Declan Brooks took to the ramps at the Ariake Urban Sports Park to be judged and given their seeding for the final this morning.

After two spectacular runs on the park Charlotte has been seeded 4th behind two US athletes - Hannah Roberts and Perris Benegas and Swiss rider Nikita Ducarroz.

25-year-old Declan has been seeded in 7th place in the men's Freestyle BMX event with Australian gold medal favourite Logan Martin emerging with top ranking.

There will be just nine men and nine women riders in the fiercely-contested event as competitors execute tricks on obstacles such as walls, box jumps and spines.

World bronze medallist Charlotte and Declan will have just 60 seconds to perform acrobatics tricks and skills, with tricks scored on multiple aspects including difficulty, originality, execution, height and creativity.

Riders go in reverse order of ranking with riders ranked based on their average score in this morning's event. The highest-scoring rider will go last in the final on Sunday morning with two runs per athlete.

This means that even if a rider scores poorly in the first run, they have a second run to fall back on. One tactic that riders can use is to go all-out on the second run with extreme tricks and originality after an initial conservative banker run.

Riders competing last, especially in the final, have the benefit of seeing how previous riders performed, and use this to their advantage by adapting their performance.

In the women’s event, 19-year-old Hannah Roberts from the USA is the favourite for the gold medal after the teenager took the park title in the 2021 BMX freestyle world championships. The twice world champion is also the first woman to land a 360 tailwhip in competition.

The Olympics Freestyle BMX takes place on Sunday (August 1) with Charlotte in the Women’s Freestyle starting at 2.10am (BST) and Declan taking part in the Men’s Freestyle at 3.20am (BST).