Vert finals T-Mobile Extreme Playgrounds, Berlin, Germany.

Dec 02, 2008

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 5433 times

Vert riders, relax, here's you finals report. Yup we posted the street part earlier today but we should not forget about the vert contest either. You see, vert contests are scarce these days. This year only a very few halfpipe contests took place in Europe. The BMX Masters was one of them and if I am informed right, only a few vert riders showed up at the Nass comp. Damn, that's not much. Of course a few vert shows are done left and right and in the USA they've got the Dew Tour and also the X-Games events usually

have a vert ramp set up but in Europe there's not too much happening.

To get 14 decent vert riders on the ramp in Berlin for the Extreme Playground comp meant that a few guys had to be "imported". Chad Kagy, Coco, Jorge Jovel, Austin Coleman, Zack Warden and Jay Eggleston all had to travel from the USA and met up with the European riders that were invited. After round one the only American not to transfer was Jorge Jovel who got eliminated by South American Coco Zurita. Brits Simon Tabron (who moved to the USA on Monday after the comp) and Zach Shaw transfered to the final roun

d and Benny Kopp (Germany) voted himself back in via text messaging. But respect where respect is due, all vert riders shredded in Berlin.

Maybe Ronnie Remo did not reach his normal level but he had an ankle that was as purple as Simon's LG phone. With a head to head contest format you have to be lucky which opponent you have to ride against. Shaun Eglington picked Simon Tabron. I had not seen Shaun ride this well and maybe the Corby training facility in England is already paying off. Zach Shaw has been riding the same ramp and when he feels confident his old tricks are coming back and he's ready to throw a new one lik

e the giant inverted 540 that went to flames.

Jan Valenta has been using his foampit to progress and he also had bad luck to be teamed up with a shredding Zack Warden. Zack not only impressed me in the bar every night but I did get to witness his best riding during Saturday's qualifying and that includes double whips, a barspin to tailwhip and very clean bikeflips. Well impressed. Tim Eichert pulled a barspin 540 and was stoked on that. Austin Coleman was loving his first European trip. It looked like he was struggling in practice with the ramp a bit but by the first round he had figured it out. Double alley-oop downside whips, opposite no-handed flairs and more tech moves got him a place in the final 8.

Jay Eggleston is always on the ball. He's got his own style and wins in the high air variation category. So smooth too. His 540 must have been at 9 feet and he even got a pump out of it. Jay might not do the opposite tricks or carve the ramp but he is a true vert rider and still makes finals. Coco has been riding really well. He's got the full package; tricks, style, height and endurance. It resulted in third place in Germany and he was hella stoked. The battle between first and second place was going to be good. A crowd of 4500 people had gathered around the vert ramp to watch the finals before The Offspring was going on stage. After Chad Kagy's first run that included his insane tricks (just watch the videos to see

what I mean) it was up to Simon Tabron to beat that. Simon went for a 900, which he had pulled earlier in the weekend, but this one he crashed on. When he tried to get back on the bike he noticed that his pinky finger was fractured and he could not continue. The left a victory run for Chad where he tried one of those flair double whips. It did not work out but the crowd appreciated the effort and so did every vert fan in Europe.
BdJ