One man – a significant one in the world of BMX – has denied Wyndham Warriors star Jordan Morgan a breakthrough world title.
Four-time defending world champion Robin van der Kolk left the field in his wake in the 24-inch cruiser class at the UCI BMX world championships in Rotterdam.
Morgan mustered all the power he could out of the gates, but van der Kolk beat him to the first corner and was nigh on impossible to catch from that point on.
“Being inside a stadium, the track was pretty short so it was pretty much whoever can get to the first turn first would do the best,” Morgan told Star Weekly.
“You base all your training around explosive power to get out of the gate and to the bottom of the start hill as fast as you can and from there it’s all about trying to hold it together.
“I equalled my best ever result and finished second so I was pretty rapt with that.”
Morgan came second out of 135 competitors from across the globe.
The determined Werribee resident replicated his second placing at the worlds in Copenhagen in 2011.
It is no disgrace to come runner-up to a man of the stature of Dutchman van der Kolk.
“It means the world to me,” Morgan said of his podium finish.
“He’s won four world titles in a row and is the only guy to ever do that.”
Morgan endured his fair share of issues in the lead-up to the race. The 24-year-old had to overcome a number of injury setbacks and jet lag during the competition.
“We arrived on the Saturday morning and I raced on the Wednesday and Friday morning,” he said. “I wasn’t feeling too good after practice so I wasn’t sure which way things were going to go. Even during racing I had bad jet lag.”
Morgan, who secured much-needed funding from the Wyndham council to get to the world championships, trained at least an hour a day, seven days a week to be ready for the event.
He is hellbent on continuing his push towards a world title.
It was a real family affair for Morgan in Rotterdam. His older sister Amanda made it to the quarter-finals eight months after the birth of her first child. His nephew Spencer McKee competed in the boys’ seven-year-old section.
Wyndham Warriors father and son Matt and Tyler Young had to pull out after Matt suffered an injury in a training mishap in Sweden days before the competition. Matt was under doctor’s instructions not to fly to the event.
“It was their first world championships so it would’ve been a very good experience to do it together,” Morgan said. “It’s a real shame because I think they would’ve done pretty good.”
