A long and arduous journey on and off the track ended in jubilation as Beth Shriever won Britain’s first BMX gold medal at the Olympic Games on Friday. A succession of injuries, the withdrawal of UK Sport funding, a cancelled “holiday of a lifetime” for her family, and the trials of training in lockdown were all erased as the 22-year-old, from Leytonstone, east London, won her race in Tokyo. After even more tension during a 45-minute rain delay before the semi-final, Shriever held off defending champion Mariana Pajon, of Colombia, in a desperate finish in the final to take the gold. She collapsed on the track in a mixture of triumph and relief before being hoisted aloft by jubilant team-mate Kye Whyte, the 21-year-old who minutes earlier had claimed Britain’s first BMX racing Olympic medal with a silver in his event. Shriever gave Britain its sixth gold medal of the …