BMX Racing World Cup Bogota: Who will be crowned overall champion?

This is it.

The final two rounds of the BMX racing World Cup will take place this weekend at the Parque El Salitre in Bogota, Colombia. After six rounds of action the favourites are clear, however surprises may still be sprung with 1,000 points on the line between Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 October.

The Netherlands’ London 2012 bronze medallist Laura Smulders is in a dominant position at the top of the women’s ranking and it would take something truly special to deny her a fifth World Cup series crown that could even be decided as soon as Saturday. And while the men’s competition is closer, with France’s Sylvain Andre 465 points ahead, he still looks odds-on to take home the title.

How did we get here?

Smulders has been back to her dominant best this season, after a four-year stretch between 2016 and 2019 where she won every World Cup overall title on offer.

She got off to a flying start in rounds 1 and 2 of the competition that took place in Glasgow in May, delivering consecutive race victories to achieve the maximum 1,000 points. Switzerland's Zoe Claessens took second place in round 1, with British Olympic champion Beth Shriever coming home second in round 2. It marked the beginning of what has become a three-way race to the finish line, with everything still up for grabs this weekend.

Round 3 saw a changing of the guard, as Claessens took her first victory of the season, leaving Smulders in second position in Papendal, Netherlands in May, in a race in which Shriever could only finish 10th. And Claessens once again proved to be the class of the field the following day as she recorded back-to-back victories with Smulders second and Shriever third.

However, it was last weekend in Colombia that Smulders really tightened her grip on the title, coming home second to Shriever in round 5 as Claessens finished 13th before storming to victory in round six, with Claessens fourth and Shriever eighth.

In the men’s competition, Diego Alejandro Arboleda Ospina was the victor in round 1 of the competition, with Andre second and Olympic silver medallist Kye Whyte third. Round 2 saw a French one-two with Jeremy Rencurel winning, however Andre showed his remarkable consistency by once again coming home second.

It took until round 3 for Andre to register his first victory of the season, as he saw off the challenge of Rencurel to take the victory in Papendal. But a 15th place in round 4 opened the door for other riders to challenge the Frenchman.

Last week’s action in round 5 saw Olympic champion Niek Kimmann register his first victory of the season, with the USA’s Cameron Wood finishing second and Andre third. And an excellent victory in the sixth round left Wood with a chance of winning the overall title as Andre finished fourth.

Who can be crowned overall champion in Bogota?

In the women’s standings, Smulders record of three wins and three second places has given her a dominant championship lead, however she can technically still be caught.

Claessens is 672 points behind and would need to take the lion’s share of the maximum 1,000 available to stand any chance of catching Smulders, who in all likelihood will earn her fifth crown. The other rider mathematically in the equation is Shriever, who sits 985 points behind the leader.

The men’s side, while closer, also sees one rider enter the final rounds as the clear favourite. The 2018 World Champion Andre’s consistency this season has seen him build a 465-point lead, and it would take an epic weekend from the 21-year-old Wood to overcome such a great deficit.

Whatever happens, you can watch the entire show from the quarter-finals onwards live on Olympics.com and the Olympics YouTube channel from Bogota on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 October beginning at 3pm local time in Colombia (8pm UTC) on each day.