AMERICA 1-1-1 | Bikesportnz

The writing is on the wall for tomorrow’s race day at the Motocross of Nations … splashed there in big, bold red, white and blue, star-spangled colours.

Yes, Team USA was the dominant force in qualifying at day one of the MXoN at St Jean d’Angely in France today, and that came as no surprise to any one of the vocal crowd that jostled for space on the hilly circuit.

Team USA – Ryan Dungey (MX1), Ryan Villopoto (open) and Blake Baggett (MX2) – finished the day unbeaten in their qualifying races to record the perfect score (1+1+1=3 and, after dropping their worst score, the tally was 2).

Team Italia – Antonio Cairoli (MX1, 2nd), Davide Guarneri (open, 2nd) and Alessandro Lupino (MX2, 6th) – were next best with a tally of 4 points (after discarding Lupino’s sixth placing).

The host nation, France, was third best in qualifying, with a team tally of 5 points.

Marvin Musquin (MX2) finished 2nd, Christophe Pourcel (MX1) placed 3rd and Gautier Paulin (open) also finished 3rd.

As for Team New Zealand, they were, not unexpectedly, overwhelmed and did not qualify for tomorrow’s main race. They will have to be content with racing in the B final.

Auckland’s Joel Doeksen (MX1) placed 26th, Elsthorpe’s Kieran Scheele (Open Class) finished 27th and Rotorua’s John Phillips (MX2) was 23rd.

The team tally for this “development squad” from New Zealand was 49 points, earning them a ranking of 28th out of the 36 countries present.

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