Saturday we had the prelims for Beginner, Amateur, Expert and Master. Lots of young kids in Amateur which is really cool, skill level was not really high but their enthousiasm made up for that, lots of those kids are in the Servon Flatland Club headed by Pascal and Ismael, taking flatland to the kids! Good skills in Amateur and Expert class, Master Class had some great riders and we saw some good riding that day. In the evening there was a party in a poolhall, they had a big screen to show flatland dvds, it started of with the premiere of the new solo dvd by Alex Jumelin: ALEX 75, which will be on sale soon, a great movie (hell, I made it), after that they showed other dvds like the Ninja Spin dvd and Mixt by Intrikat. Fisheye (the bmx shop owned by Pascal) handed out free beers and Alex Jumelin and Michael Sommer challenged me and Raphael Chiquet to a game of pool. Of course, me and Raph won!
Sunday had the amateur finals and the pro runs. Vince from London did some live beatboxing during the contest and he showed us that he can do some flatland riding too! One-handed McCircles and smooth Backwards Hitchhikers to win Amateur. UK riders were quite succesfull because Paul Chamberlain blew away the competition in Master Class with very smooth links, all rolling in style, no scuffs and very cool switches like wheelchair to halfpacker and back. His style reminded me of James White and that's a good thing! Bad news for the OG Crew from Hungary: they had a car crash and the cops impounded their car, with bikes! So no bikes, I saw Adam trying another bike but with the prelims on hand it was no use, so no OG riders in Pro and that was a shame because Adam was rocking the house in practise on Saturday, I am sure he would have taken a top 5 spot! 
So on to pro: lots of riders here, the German Posse, Alex, Raph, Michi, Alexis, Bram and more. Bram was on his new prototype KHE signature frame the R.I.P. ripping it up. So was Matthias, he was ripping it up too, I first filmed him on last years Circle Cow, I saw then that he was something special and everytime we met I talked to him and we did some filming (you can check for yourself on FLATtv 5 and 6), I was right about him, he has progressed tremendously and best of all, he's still that kid with the wide grin having fun on his bike. Alex had a protoype too but it got stolen a week before Circle Cow so he had to ride an Equilibrium and he had a hard time riding it because the angles are so different. Michael Sommer had a lot of new stuff too, he blew it up. Daniel had a good run, he is always very nervous in contests but he kept it together this time. So did Wolfgang. You may not have heard of Keelan Philips, a shy guy from Leeds, but he's got mad skills, spectacular brakeless riding varying from smooth rolling to crazy fast turbine and pumping. Raphael had bad luck: he tore his hamstring during his run and was out of the competition. Ouch! 
The best trick contest which was won by Alex Jumelin. Qualified for the finals were six riders: Alex, Matthias, Keenan, Michi, Wolfgang and Daniel. They had to battle against each other for the big prize. In the end Michael Sommer won the contest with his famous halfpacker links and very energetic style, Alex took second place with his usual crazy techniques, Wolfgang third, Keelan fourth, Mattias fifth and Daniel Sixth. It was a good weekend, thanks to Pascal, Ismael and all the people and sponsors who made it happen. See you all next year!
Renato
Photos: Courtesy of Global-Flat.com
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.