Simple Session 20, Tallinn, Estonia (the party pics)

Feb 13, 2020

Written by Bart de Jong

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The 20th-anniversary event of the annual Simple Session contest went down last weekend, February 8 – 9 at the Saku Arena in Tallinn, Estonia. The main contests hosted 159 athletes from 30 countries: 58 in Pro Skateboarding, 13 in Women’s BMX, 51 in Pro BMX Street and 37 in BMX Park. The Qualifications went down on Saturday and Finals on Sunday, with 12 top Qualifiers competing for the medals.

For the first time since 2013, women’s BMX class called Sister Session was brought back. There were 13 competitors from all over the world, a couple of them will be representing their countries at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, where BMX Freestyle will make its debut. The Swiss-American Nikita Ducarroz

(Mongoose) took home the win. The Japanese Olympic hope Minato Oike (Vis-à-vis) took second and the winner of the Youth Olympic Games, German Lara Lessman (fresh addition to the Red Bull team) took the third place.

In BMX Street, last year’s gold medalist Felix Prangenberg GER (Kunstform) finished with the highest score, first place qualifier Broc Raiford USA (Red bull) was second, and Alex Donnachie GBR (BSD Forever) was third.

The Japanese prodigy Rim Nakamura JPN (Red Bull) celebrated his 18th birthday with an absolute bang, winning the BMX Park contest. The second place went to the current UCI world champion Brandon Loupos AUS (Rockstar). Last year’s winner Boyd Hilder AUS (Federal Bikes) came third and also got the 10th place in BMX Street.

“Nikita had great style, well-executed tricks like no-handers and some of the more difficult ones such as the 540 air,” commented BMX judge David Cleworth. He went on to explain that both Prangenberg and Nakamura showed great use of the course, originality and did cleaner runs compared to the other contestants and therefore, deserved to win.

Judging the BMX competitions were David “Hank” Cleworth GBR (head judge), Markus Wilke GER, Antti Huotari FIN, Toms Silins LVA, and Achim Kujawski GER.

Simple Session Finals were broadcast LIVE in partnership with Red Bull TV with hosts Ed Leigh and expert commentator Sebastian Keep (BMX). At the arena, the Finals were hosted by announcers Andy Zeiss and Darryl Nau in BMX.