To ratify the favoritism with which she was burdened and honoring her scroll, the Colombian Mariana Pajón Londoño obtained the gold medal this Sunday at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games in the BMX Racing Cycling competition.
The 32-year-old Colombian – silver medalist (in Tokyo 2020) and double Olympic gold medalist (in London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016), nicknamed “The Queen of BMX” -, won on the Parque Peñalolén track with a time of 34,400.
It was a competition with dominance from start to finish by the Antioquian, who won all her races from the quarterfinals (3), semi-final (3) and the grand final comfortably, as she took more than a second and a half ahead of the Canadian Molly Simpson who it was silver (36,000), and the podium was completed by another Colombian, Gabriela Bolle Carrillo (with 36,500).
In this way, Mariana Pajón Londoño becomes three-time champion of the Pan American Games, after also winning the gold medal in Guadalajara 2011 and Lima 2019.
The men’s final was closer and for a moment it seemed that the Colombian Diego Arboleda was on the podium with a good comeback in the middle section of the track, but in the last corner he lost position with his compatriot Carlos Ramírez who took the bronze . The one-two went to the United States with Kamren Larsen and Cameron Wood.
It should be noted that the BMX cycling race is one of the disciplines that awards points for the world Olympic ranking of the category.