The final hosted 8 riders so two had to go home empty handed but with a good memory. Tuomo Ilmonen from Finland and Sven Kabosch from Switzerland failed to make the cut. Sven has improved a lot since last time I saw him ride in Belgium. Sven is riding brakeless now and that seems to help getting higher. Tuomo didn’t have his best day but wasn’t far away from top 8. Barspins, inverts, x-ups and no-handers were Tuomo’s contribution to the vert contest. All around the 6 feet mark. 
Let’s move straight to the Halfpipe finals. In 8th we’ve got Chris Mahoney who also made the street finals. Chris has been going steady with his girl for 5 months and that seems to relax the otherwise wild Brit. With a bit of a regular pump Chris could be battling in the 4 – 6 place range but deep landings on his stretched and clicked variations had him work his way up after nearly every run. He whipped a few superman tailwhips in the ramp which the Estonian crowd liked a lot.
Dark Matter’s Anthony Pill is the handplant master. The regular handplants are in the pocket and now also the X-up one. The new variation that he’s working on is the barspin handplant and he reckons he can pull it. The Englishman also pulled barspin to no-footers, clicked turndowns and came close to tailwhip tailtaps on vert. Aze had two to ride both finals on Sunday with the first one being vert. After 6 to 7 years of trying he pulled his first tailwhip in the huge Red Bull ramp and was stoked on that. With Aze on the ramp there is always action. This time he flaired and shot off the ramp barely missing a girl that was watching in the front row. The TSG gear made sure Atze could ride the street finals later on that day. 6th for Atze.
Tim Eichert from Germany is one to not give up. As long as the wheels are turning, Tim goes for more. 540-s, backflips and German flairs (one-handed), they don’t seem to stop the German.
5th place was for Tim. In fourth place we’ve got another Brit by the name of Ronnie Remo. Ronnie has got the height and the flow doing back to back variations and huge tailwhips. The judges would have loved to see a couple other tricks in his runs and he would have made top 3 in Tallinn easy. When was the last time a Swiss rider made top three at an international pro vert contest? Has it ever happened before? Maybe we should get used to it. 19 years old Jean-Marie Bärtch (JMB) has got the flow and the style which gave him enough points to penetrate the top three. He’s simply fun to watch.
In 2nd we’ve got “Good Old” Zach Shaw. Zach has been living the family life over the winter as the closest rideable vert ramp is a three hour drive away from his warm place near London. The 20 years of BMX experience pulled through and although looking a bit rusty in the beginning, he brushed off the rust and got variations back such as no-footed cancans, the Madonna (his signature move?), X-ups to X-ups, 540-s and huge flairs. Zach was going off and it’s so rad to see him do those inverts at height. 2nd place was well deserved. 
But who was there to take first place? Bestwick? No. Mirra? No. Miron? No. Robinson? No. Kagy? No. Hoffman? No. Make that Simon Tabron. Although no gold medals were at stake, Simon gave it his best and his 540 variations are awesome. Then he also has opposite variations, huge cancans, the radical dogpiss air, stretched no-handers and the 900 air. It was time to start the Crazy Party! BdJ
Results BMX vert:
1. Simon Tabron GBR
2. Zach Shaw GBR
3. Jean-Marie Bärtch SWI
4. Ronnie Remo GBR
5. Tim Eichert GBR
6. Aze Etzold GER
7.Anthony Pill GBR
8.Chris Mahoney GBR
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.