According to Kabush, the contest was exciting: “The Aussies attacked hard, with Jongo taking a flyer first lap, which I heard he likes to do, and then Sid countered with an impressive effort and had a 45-second lead halfway through the race. Local hero Kashi and I were pacing ourselves a little more, and Sid started to feel his effort on the fourth of six laps up the grinder of a climb. I had a bit of a gap on Kashi, so I gave it full gas on the fifth lap after passing Sid, and was able to open up a bit of a buffer for the last descent.” Kabush finished in 2:00:15, but was ineligible for the title due to his Canadian citizenship.

According to cyclingnews.com, Kirkcaldie found the course challenging: “The heats were pretty good, I picked good lines - especially the top berm. I stayed high and swooped the riders who went low. It worked out pretty well. The second berm was slippery when it was dry, but it firmed up in the wet. When the rain came it actually settled the course down…The course is good, they will make it a little bit more technical. The good thing is that it is fast but it also has slow, slippery turns which you can pass on - it's more MTB than BMX. It's great to be able to race it and to race against some fast riders.”