{"id":415031,"date":"2024-08-01T20:06:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T20:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=415031"},"modified":"2024-08-01T22:06:58","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T22:06:58","slug":"illness-revelation-after-sakakibaras-flawless-quarter-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=415031","title":{"rendered":"Illness revelation after Sakakibara's flawless quarter-finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

P\ufeffARIS:<\/strong> Australia's Saya Sakakibara has avoided the carnage of the BMX racing course to reach the semi-finals unscathed.<\/p>\n

Sakakibara, who was knocked unconscious in a brutal semi-final crash in Tokyo, rode clear of the chaos to win all three of her quarter-final runs.<\/p>\n

It put the 24-year-old through as one of the 12 automatic qualifiers and allowed her to avoid the last-chance race.\ufeff<\/p>\n

LIVE UPDATES:<\/strong> Follow all the action from day six<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Aussie beach volleyballers win again in spectacular stadium\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Saya\"Sakakibara<\/p>\n

After the final run, Sakakibara revealed she had missed a training session this week with illness.<\/p>\n

"Once I got up there on the first gate … the crowd, the atmosphere, that got me this the zone, put that pressure on me to perform well, and, yeah, I was really counting on that pressure to get like the best out of me.<\/p>\n

"Once I got that first one out of the way, I was like, OK, I can do this.<\/p>\n

"I just tried to repeat it another two times."\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"Sakakibara<\/p>\n

She'll ride again on Friday for a place in the final and looms as a genuine medal shot.<\/p>\n

It would be a remarkable moment for Sakakibara and her family, who have been through so much in the past few years.<\/p>\n

Her brother and biggest supporter Kai was left in a coma for six weeks and\ufeff suffered life-changing injuries in an awful 2020 fall of his own, with their touching story reducing Nine host Ally Langdon to tears in the coverage last week.<\/p>\n

\"Host<\/p>\n

Sakakibara competes in her brother's racing number, 77.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Fellow Australia Lauren Reynolds, in her third Olympics, also qualified for the semi-finals with placings of fourth, third and third.<\/p>\n

\"Izaac<\/p>\n

In the men's event, the Gold Coast's Izaac Kennedy, 23,\ufeff also made the semi-final, finishing fifth, second and first to qualify sixth.<\/p>\n

\ufeffKennedy is racing in Paris with a broken wrist<\/a> after a nasty crash in May.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Watch every moment, every medal of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 live and free on Channel 9 and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Plus, every event streaming ad free, live and on demand with 4K on<\/strong><\/em> Stan Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

P\ufeffARIS: Australia's Saya Sakakibara has avoided the carnage of the BMX racing course to reach the semi-finals unscathed. Sakakibara, who was knocked unconscious in a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":415034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=415031"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415044,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415031\/revisions\/415044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/415034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=415031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=415031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=415031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}