Virginia Beach’s Justin Dowell finished seventh in the freestyle BMX finals at the Olympics on Wednesday morning in Paris.
Dowell, a graduate of Princess Anne High, was competing in his second consecutive Olympics after an eighth-place finish in 2021 in Tokyo. Dowell won the world championship in 2018 and won a bronze medal at the 2018 Pan American Games.
In Wednesday’s Olympic finals, Dowell had a clean first run, and his 88.35 score left him in fifth place after the opening round. Dowell’s second run came after French superstar Anthony JeanJean turned in a 93.76 that elated the Paris crowd at the urban sports park built at Place de La Concorde. Dowell warmed up while JeanJean basked in the adoration after a crash during his first run.
Dowell started well on his second and final run, which included his signature “Twix” move, but he stopped with about 15 seconds remaining and received a 54.60 score from the judges. It’s unclear why Dowell stopped before his allotted 60 seconds were finished, but television announcers surmised there may have been a problem with Dowell’s bike.
Argentina’s Jose Torres Gil won the gold medal, putting together a first run that withstood the best efforts of British world champion Kieran Reilly and JeanJean. Torres Gil opened with a massive 720, threw down another 720 later in the run and managed to ride through a near-bobble at the end to score 94.82 points. That was better than everyone else, including his own second run, when Torres Gil put together another big score that very nearly would have landed him on the podium.
Reilly had the last chance to capture gold, and his run was worthy of the top step just about any other day. But despite a clean run that he was so pleased with that he chucked his bike to the ground in satisfaction, his score of 93.91 came up just short.
JeanJean got the home crowd into his performance during his final run. But the judges awarded him only 93.76 points, relegating him to the bronze medal.
Marcus Christopher of the United States finished just off the podium in fourth. Rimu Nakamura of Japan was fifth.
The defending gold medalist, Logan Martin of Australia, crashed out of both of his runs.
Dowell, 24, advanced to the finals with a fourth-place finish in qualifying Tuesday morning. He finished with scores of 88.40 and 89.74 on his two runs.
The two-run average was used in the qualifying rounds, but only the riders’ best of two 60-second runs counts in the finals.
In the women’s freestyle BMX competition, Deng Yawen of China won gold, while five-time world champion Hannah Roberts of the United States crashed out of both of her runs and failed to medal.
Deng finished with a score of 92.60 points, while Perris Benegas of the U.S. rose to the occasion, going from fourth place at the Tokyo Games to a silver medal with 90.70 points. Natalya Diehm of Australia had two clean runs and her first of 88.80 points was good enough for bronze.
Crouse, US team fall: Former Cox High star Leah Crouse started her third game of the Olympics in the United States’ 3-0 field hockey loss to Australia. The U.S. fell to 0-3 and plays Great Britain at 11 a.m. Thursday. The U.S. is fifth in six-team Pool B, and the top four teams qualify for the quarterfinals.
Roble falls short of finals: Old Dominion sailor Stephanie Roble and her U.S. teammate, Maggie Shea, failed to qualify for the women’s skiff sailing finals. Roble and Shea finished 12th after the first 10 races and only the top 10 advanced.
Collins ousted in singles: Former UVA star Danielle Collins’ quest for an Olympic medal in women’s tennis ended Wednesday when she retired in the third set of her match against No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek of Poland. Swiatek was leading 6-1, 2-6, 4-1 at the time.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
