RULES OF THE GAME
BMX racing in Beijing will be contested like a motorcycle supercross: eight riders swathed in padded jumpsuits and helmets will hurl themselves on clown-size bikes to the end of a 370-meter dirt track (350 meters for the women). The winners of every “moto,” or heat, advance through several rounds before reaching the main event: the eight-rider finals. Each moto is expected to last 35 to 40 seconds; it’s a straight race against the clock, and style doesn’t matter. “This isn’t a judged sport,” says the 25-year-old American rider Donny Robinson, currently ranked No. 1 in the world and the winner of the only official race held to date on the Beijing Olympic track. “It’s about who’s fastest, strongest, smartest and least scared.”
STRATEGY
The BMX track in Beijing is one of the most challenging ever built. Its defining feature: a vertiginous 26-foot starting ramp. “Imagine riding straight down the side of a three-story building,” King says. To help prepare riders for the course, USA Cycling built an exact replica at their training center in Chula Vista, Calif. By the time racers reach the bottom of the ramp and are onto the first straightaway, they’ll be topping 40 miles per hour. This is a critical moment. “You have to get the hole shot there or you’re in big trouble,” Robinson says. “You don’t want to be caught in the pack.” Racers can try to gain time on the track’s big dirt jumps — one of which is 10 feet high and will launch riders into the air — or the smaller, closely spaced bumps  of the so-called rhythm section. But for the most part, “being in front from the start is the key to winning,” Robinson says. “That and not crashing out.”

MEDAL FAVORITES
Besides Robinson, who at 5-foot-5 is the smallest rider on the men’s circuit (and who always races in the pair of lucky socks he wore in his last victory), the United States men’s team includes the 2008 national BMX champion, Kyle Bennett, and Mike Day, who is currently ranked No. 11 in the world (and who is a  giant at 6-foot-3). All three are expected to contend for gold, as is Australia’s Jared Graves, who’s currently second in the world rankings. On the women’s side, American medal prospects are considerably dimmer. The United States earned only one racing slot — and while the woman who will fill it, the 26-year-old Jill Kintner, was a three-time mountain-bike-racing world champion, a recent knee injury suffered during training may hobble her speed. Look for either the former mountain-bike downhill-racing queen Anne-Caroline Chausson, 30, of France, or Shanaze Reade, 19, the pierced-lipped 2008 world champion from Britain, to outpedal the pack for the gold.

(USAToday)