Brooke Crain, Connor Fields Complete U.S. Olympic BMX Team

Brooke Crain and Connor Fields will join three other riders to round out the 2016 U.S. Olympic BMX Team, USA Cycling announced today.

As discretionary selections, Crain and Fields join Nic Long and Alise Post, who qualified to the team when they earned bronze medals at the world championships last month in Medellin, Colombia. Corben Sharrah claimed his spot on the team June 11 by winning the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Chula Vista, California.

Crain, 23, is back for another try at Olympic gold, having placed eighth at the London 2012 Olympic Games despite being a last-minute replacement for Arielle Martin, who was injured in a crash days before leaving for England. Currently ranked No. 7 the world and and the No. 2 U.S. women’s rider behind Post, Crain grew up in talent-rich southern California. She demonstrated her potential early, becoming the youngest person to make a main event at a world cup in 2009, then was the only junior elite to break the top-10 in the 2010 world cup series. By the time she was 16 she had won two age-group world titles and a national championship. She showed her comfort on the Rio course by winning the bronze medal at last October’s Olympic test event.

Fields, 23, earns a spot on his second Olympic team after placing seventh in London, where he was the youngest rider in the field. The Plano, Texas, native currently is ranked No. 14 in the world, No. 3 among American riders behind Long and Sharrah. A three-time world cup winner, he also won time trial gold at both the 2013 and 2012 world championships. He has competed at the last two Pan American Games, winning gold in Guadalajara in 2011. His silver medal behind Sharrah gave the U.S. a one-two finish in March’s world cup race in Santiago del Estero, Argentina. Fields broke a bone in his hand in April, keeping him out of the world championships and U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

Four of the five members of the BMX team return from the 2012 Olympics, while Sharrah will make his Olympic debut.