Caroline Buchanan 3rd In First Round Of UCI BMX World Cup

More than 4000 thousand spectators watched the spectacular racing in the Palacio des Deportes downtown Madrid. A record number of 174 competitors from 27 countries entered the first World Cup of the 2010 UCI BMX Supercross season in Madrid. The best 64 men and 32 women qualified for the finals based on their time trial results.

Unit athlete Caroline Buchanan headed to Spain with high hopes and came away with a very impressive 3rd place. Nice work Caroline!

Madrid's indoor arena in the centre of town drew a big crowd with record numbers of riders attending.

The Australian team arrived early, giving them more time to adapt to the time zone.

"Security was tight to get into the stadium so we only saw the track the day before racing started," says Buchanan.

"Tom did a great job designing the track with a new box jump idea for the guys.

"The girls 2nd straight was quite technical with tall dirt jumps.

"All the time the Australian team spent at Luke Madill's house on the time trials really paid off.

"I finished in 2nd position in the time trial starting off the weekend with great Olympic points and confidence for racing."

Last year's World Cup series started slow - but not this year!! Caroline is on a mission to prove she's the best in the world and qualify for the 2012 Olympics.

The EDS Australian team will now head to the UCI headquarters in Switzerland for training, then off to France for a UCI round. The next round of the UCI BMX World Cup is the beginning of May.