AST Dew Tour to Host BMX Olympic Qualifier

Sep 10 2007 / New York, NY

The AST Dew Tour, the world's premier season-long action sports tour, will host the only U.S. UCI BMX Supercross World Cup Olympic Qualifier as a specialty competition at the Toyota Challenge on Saturday, September 22 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The fourth stop of the AST Dew Tour, the Toyota Challenge, takes place September 20-23 at Salt Lake City's EnergySolutions Arena.  The BMX Supercross race can be seen on NBC Sunday September 23 at 3pm EST.

"All of the Olympic contenders will be in Salt Lake City for the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, the premier BMX racing series in the world," said Wade Martin, President and General Manager of the AST Dew Tour. "We are excited to host the only qualifying event in the United States to determine selection for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing."

In BMX Supercross, points are given to individual athletes and to countries in the UCI Nations ranking, which qualifies competing countries into the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The BMX SX track is approximately 1000 feet long with a massive 25-ft roll in start ramp. The track is built for the best riders in the world, with up to 45-foot jumps along an extremely technical track.

"The UCI is once again excited to be a part of the AST Dew Tour. Being the most watched and attended action sports event in the world it's the perfect platform to showcase the new Olympic discipline and the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup," said Johan Lindstrom, International Cycling Union (UCI) BMX Sports Coordinator. "The Olympic Games are less than a year away, and it will be fierce competition at the Toyota Challenge in order to earn valuable qualification points for the Olympic Games."

This is the third consecutive year that the Toyota Challenge will host the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup competition. The world's top athletes will participate in Salt Lake City, most notably newly crowned World Champion Kyle Bennett (USA), Donny Robinson (USA), Cristian Becerine (Argentina), Mike Day (USA), Joey Bradford (USA), Randy Stumpfhauser (USA), Khalen Young (Australia) and Robert De Wilde (The Netherlands), who won the event in 2005. Also participating is 2006 UCI Mountain Bike 4Cross Champion Michal Prokop (Czech Republic), who won the event in 2006.

The deadline to qualify for the 2008 Olympics is May 2008. The event in Salt Lake will be the first in a series of 5 qualifiers. The complete schedule of BMX Supercross

Olympic Qualifiers is as follows:

September 2007 - BMX Supercross World Cup, Salt Lake City
October 2007 - BMX Supercross World Cup, Frejus France
March 2008 - BMX Supercross World Cup, Madrid Spain    
April 2008 - BMX Supercross World Cup, Adelaide Australia
May 2008 - BMX Supercross World Cup, Copenhagen Denmark