Vert contest report LG Berlin, Germany.

Aug 30, 2006

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 7598 times

When was the last time that the vert contest had more entries than the street contest at the same event? With Jann Valenta and Steve McCann dropping out, the vert contest in Berlin in front of the Brandenburger Tor still had 15 riders on the decks. With the vert prelims getting rained out it was straight to the finals. 2 runs each, best run counts. John Parker and Peter Geys both only managed to pull off one run and left the ramp injured. Parker in fact was still injured coming into the event with a fractured hand. He had not taken his bike out of the box since the previous LG event in England and gave it a try anyways. Peter Geys left the ramp with a hurt shoulder but had his wife and the kids there to treat him right.

Tim Eichert's second run was cut short when he strangely crashed going up the ramp. It bent his bike. Tim's first run was good though as he pulled the smoothest flair I've ever seen him do and did 540-s and one-hand 540-s.

Ricky Roich struggled a little bit but look at the other riders that finished in front of him and you will understand that it wasn't an easy task to make top ten.

Eduardo Terreros finished 11th and went for big opposite flairs in the middle of his runs. He got back up once and pumped his way back up to the ramp to finish with a 540 and a tailwhip.

Mike Mancuso surprised me with a sudden flair whip attempt. A sore shoulder was the result but I'm sure that trick, combined with his regular huge no-handed flairs and high variations would have given him a better score than 10th had he pulled it.

Benni Kopp blasted to 9th and rode very well.

Tom Stober called it quits during his second run because of a sore back that hinders him to push real hard and do the variations he knows he can do. He pulled flairs and superman seat grabs in his first run though.

Watch out for Jason Branham because he's still young (24) compared to the other vert veterans on the ramp. Jason did huge transfers from one side to the other side of the ramp and alley ooped on several variations. He's got that flair down too.

Matt Fairbairn did huge alley oop 540-s and also an x-up to double barspin on the big vert ramp. The crowd was loving it and gave their love to the Aussie.

Koji Kraft does more switch handers than the other riders combined and has rad variations on them including a switch hander to lookback if I remember right. Koji always goes for it and the vert comp at LG Berlin wasn't any different. This gets us to the top 4.

Missing the podium by 0.25 of a point was Jay Eggleston who did do the highest airs on the ramp and plenty of variations too. His 540-s are still scary looking but he manages to pull them off every time. His second run was great and when there was time left I called out the fakie air and he did so only to slam on the roll back. Jay has his own style of riding where he might not be using the entire ramp but vert riding is about big airs too and Jay delivers.

Tom Haugen is one dialled rider. After missing the street podium by one spot the Free Agent rider made sure he got top three in vert. His double whips and supermans helped get him there. Toothpick to barspin out on vert? you try it. Tom did it.

35 year old Zach Shaw got second. I repeat. 35 year old Zach Shaw got second. He rode killer and the best I've seen him ride in a long time. Huge flairs and even better, huge 540-s. He tabled one up too and landed his variations smoothly. He was stoked on second, the MP3 player, the cash but not so stoked on the extra Paul Mitchell hair care product he won.....

Simon Tabron won the comp. He was already number one after his first run and decided to have a fun second run where he had to slow down his spin on the 900 but pulled it like we're used from Simon. The remainder of his run was funny with dog piss airs, the jammin' salmon, chicken butt and stuff like that. However it was the first run with 540 variations, big flairs and all smooth variations that gave the Englishman the vicotry in Berlin.

BdJ

1 Simon Tabron Newquay, England 32, 90.25
2 Zach Shaw London, England 35, 87.25
3 Tom Haugen Minneapolis, MN 30, 86.75
4 Jay Eggleston Denver, CO 34, 86.50
5 Koji Kraft Addison, IL 23, 84.75

6 Matt Fairbairn Booragul, Australia 31, 84.50
7 Jason Branham Chicago, IL 24, 84.00
8 Tom Stober Woodward, PA 31, 83.50
9 Benni Kopp Bielefeld, Germany 28, 81.75
10 Mike Mancuso Winterville, NC 28, 81.75
11 Eduardo Terreros Getxo, Spain 32, 81.00
12 Ricardo Roich Buenos Aires, Argentina 31, 78.00
13 Tim Eichert Cologne, Germany 32, 77.00
14 Peter Geys Overpelt, Belgium 34, 75.50
15 John Parker State College, PA 32, 74.75
16 Steve McCann DNS
17 Jann Valenta DNS