Liam Phillips bounced back from a broken collarbone with a strong start to his Olympic BMX campaign at the London 2012 Velopark.
The 23-year-old from Burnham-on-Sea suffered the shoulder injury at May's BMX World Championships in Birmingham, a day after winning time-trial silver.
Phillips was the seventh of 32 riders to roll down the ramp and qualified in 38.719 seconds to take the provisional lead on a track he was riding on in competition for the first time.
He worked as a commentator at last summer's test event while trying out for the track team as a specialist starter in the team sprint before returning to BMX later in 2011.