HE gained more experience but there will be no Tokyo Olympic stint for youthful Fil-American BMX rider Patrick Bren Coo.
Coo bowed out of Olympic contention after finishing 46th and 47th, respectively, in Rounds 3 and 4 of the UCI BMX World Cup Series that ended yesterday in Bogota, Colombia.
He needed to finish at least in the top four of both races to qualify for Tokyo. He clocked 35.33 seconds in placing No. 46 in the first race and in 36.794 in the next race, failing to earn points in both runs.
The 2019 Asian BMX junior champion clocked 36.355 to place sixth in Heat 5 of the preliminaries of Round 4 where the top four riders advance to the quarterfinals and was relegated to the repechage.
Coo capped his Olympic qualifying campaign by placing third overall in the first heat of the repechage with a time of 36.794, with Russian Evgeny Kleshchenko (34.313) and Peruvian Andre Lacroix (36.102) finishing 1-2, respectively, to advance to the quarterfinals.
Frenchman Joris Daudet, who ruled Round 3, completed a sweep of both races to emerge as best rider in Round 4 with a time of 32.694, with Swiss Cedric Butti second in 33.143 and Latvia’s Helvijs Babris third in 33.823.
The top three overall individual riders in the UCI Olympic classification standings will automatically qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in July.
Coo was a last-minute replacement for 2014 Asian Games gold medalist Daniel Caluag, who was unable to train because he is a practicing nurse in the US.
