Reade crashes into tomorrow's BMX showdown

(AP)

When Shanaze Reade crashed and recorded the slowest time in her first seeding race in the women's BMX event today it seemed that the 19-year-old from Crewe might struggle to live up to her status as the favourite.

By the time she had finished her second run the twice world champion was looking more like the rider who has taken the sport by storm in recent years. The semi-finals taking place at 2am (BST) tomorrow, followed by the final 90 minutes later.

After crashing on the very first bend Reade recorded the slowest time of the whole field, 59.330sec. Despite scraping her elbow and thigh the Briton recovered in time for the second run, in which her time of 36.882sec was the second fastest of the day behind France's Anne-Caroline Chausson, who was a fifth of a second quicker.

Only the faster times count in deciding the semi-final line-ups and Reade was racing in today's second race, avoiding both Chausson and New Zealand's Sarah Walker, the 2008 world championship bronze medallist.

Reade, who won the test event here on the Laoshan track last summer, said: "I don't know why I fell. We looked at the video and it's just one of those things. That's BMX. It didn't affect me. I'm hurt a little bit now, but I'm also excited."

Britain's Liam Phillips was not so lucky after falling in the men's quarter-finals. He suffered a dislocated shoulder and missed out on a place in the semi-finals.