COME ON, LET'S GO FOR A RIDE

摘要

New Olympic sports can usually be summed up with one of three words: "fast," "sexy" or "splat." Anything that showcases speed, skin or danger makes the sport TV-friendly. Snowboard cross, with its downhill velocity and spectacular wipeouts, was a hit in its debut at Torino 2006. This summer its spiritual twin, bicycle motocross, or BMX, crashes the Games. BMX is a dirt-track race with plenty of jumps-and plenty of opportunities for catastrophe. Sand will be hot in Beijing, too. America's defending beach-volleyball champs Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh remain the gold standard-they haven't lost a match in almost a year.