Munich Mash 2023. Exciting till the very end. By BdJ

Jul 02, 2023

Written by Bart de Jong

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The Munich Mash concept seems to work. Thousands of spectators came to the Olympia Park in Munich to witness the sickness and BMX was one of the highlights. It's fair to say between 5000-7000 were sitting on the natural bank to watch the finals on Sunday. 8 riders had made the cut while 4 had to watch from the sidelines after Saturday's qualification phase. The morning rain disappeared and a last practice/warm-up session could be held in order for Jacob Thiem, Tom "Richter" Justice, Sergio Layos, Bryce Tryon, Kieran Reilly, Shaun Gornall, Declan Brooks and Sikharin Supanmart to get ready for the big final. Live TV, a big crowd, prestige and some good prize money were on the line and as usual the energy given by the MC's and the crowd helped step it up.

Sergio Layos still has the lines, the flow and the style at age 37. Amazing really. Bryce Tryon pulled 540 flairs which had the crowd pumping. Sikharin did huge barspin 540s and flipped to fakie and then tailwhipped out of it. Shaun Gornall had one killer run (his first one) but two were needed (from three) to get a final score in. He ended up in 6th but it could have easily been a top 4 had he stayed on. Tom Justice does things the Tom Justice way meaning all variations are over stretched and over clicked. Tom brought the fufs, backflips over the spine with variations and did more lip tricks than most. Declan Brooks had the height, the speed, the lines, the flow and sent his tricks to the moon whenever he had the chance. 540 flairs, double whips, frontflips and 720s over the spine were just some of the tricks he threw in to finish third in Munich. He stayed on which was the most important thing for Declan with the UCI BMX Park World Cup in Brussels just a weekend away.

Jacob Thiem took the early lead in the final with an action packed first run. Find it on Youtube and you'll understand why he got the highest score after run 1. Run two was solid as was his last run with triple whips, triple trucks and triple barspins combined with flair whips, handplant variations on the vert wall. The scores reached the 90s. with one run to go Kieran Reilly was in 2nd. He needed a 92.33 to win the comp. Kieran needed that extra trick in his run to make the difference. Guess what, he packed that double flair in his last run to score a 93 meaning the Brit grabbed the #1 spot at Munich Mash 2023.

Results Munich Mash 2023, Munich Germany:

1) Kieran Reilly (GBR)
2) Jacob Thiem (USA)
3) Declan Brooks (GBR)
4) Bryce Tryon (USA)
5) Tom Justice (GBR)
6) Shaun Gornall (GBR)
7) Sergio Layos (ESP)
8) Sikharin Supanmart (GER)
9) Alessio Tonoli (SUI)
10) Tobias Freigang (GER)
11) Lennox Zimmermann (GER)
12) George Ntavoutian (GRE)