T-Mobile Extreme Playgrounds BMX contest report. By BdJ

Dec 08, 2009

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 6623 times

It was weird showing up at a contest on the day of the contest. Usually you get in, say hi to the people, check what's new, watch some practice, take some pictures, and all that good stuff but this one was different. I left the house at 4am(!) to pick up Paul in Aarle-Rixtel. We drove down to Duesseldorf to catch a 06:40h plane to Berlin. Got there a little early at 07:45h and waited for the shuttle for an hour. It didn't show up so we took a taxi to the hotel. Tried to check in around 09:45h but there were no rooms available yet. After some

chilling in suite 512 we cruised over to the Velodrome around noon. Plenty of great riders there but missing was Mark Webb. His replacement in the invite only contest was Markus Braumann. Also Jan Valenta did not show up. He had broken two vertabrea in his back in England the previous week and drove all the way back to Czech. Paul Meacher was flown in for him to ride the vert part of the event. 14 riders in total started off the head to head street comp. Bruno vs Main, Bommel vs Barbero, Beran vs Young, JB vs Darden, Anton vs Enarson, Slez vs Braumann and Hennon vs Nyquist. Wow, no easy rides there....

Two one minute runs each with the best one counting. On to the next round were the following seven riders. Main - Bommel - Young - Darden - Enarson - Slez and Nyquist. A couple of close ones were there.... Bruno Hoffmann was voted back in via SMS voting. Bruno rode Andy Z's bike after his broke his 10 minutes before the comp. He showed consistency right away and basically pulled all of his tricks. You probably saw all that live anyway on FATBMX via Freecaster so I'll save the trick lists.

Out of this group 3 Americans and one rider from the UK made the finals. The results switched around

a bit in the finals but in the end it was Gary Young in 4th, Dennis Enarson in 3rd, Nyquist in 2nd and one stoked Harry Main in first. Harry had a bad first run and was not sure if he would go in full force for the second run or try to keep it on the safe side. He said Fuck It and went full throttle. This time he stayed on the bike which gave him the $ 5000,= check. A good first time back on the contest scene!

BMX - STREET results:

1st Round

Heat 1	Bruno Hoffmann	-	Harry Main
Heat 2	Björn Mager	-	Alessandro Barbero
Heat 3	Michael Beran	-	Gary Young
Heat 4	Jean-Baptiste Peytavit	-	Rob Darden
Heat 5	Christian Anton	-	Dennis Enarson
Heat 6	Ondra Slez	-	Markus Braumann
Heat 7	Ben Hennon	-	Ryan Nyquist

Lucky Loser: Bruno Hoffmann

2nd Round

Heat 8	Rob Darden	-	Gary Young
Heat 9	Björn Mager	-	Dennis Enarson
Heat 10	Harry Main	-	Ondra Slez
Heat 11	Bruno Hoffmann	-	Ryan Nyquist

Final Four Street:

1. Harry Main
2. Ryan Nyquist
3. Dennis Enarson
4. Gary Young

Vert.

The Vert riders seem to like the "LG" ramp. It's sturdy, not too big, not too much vert and plenty of transition to land on. 8 riders were invited for the comp and the heats looked like this: Kopp vs Coleman, Meacher vs Warden, Shaw vs Coco and Byron vs Tabron.

Surprise of the qualifying heats was Vince Byron eliminating Simon Tabron. No, Simon did not

ride bad, he even pulled a 900, but Vince was on a mission. The 19 years old Australian has been living in the USA and made a big progression since last time I saw in in SLC. Not that he was riding bad there, but if he's adding a couple more feet to his airs, he'll be a podium contender in 2010. He turns to the left and to the right like it's no big deal. Back to back big tricks are also something Vince does in every run. Whips, flairs and tailwhips with variations got him to the finals. There he met Coleman, Warden and Coco. Coco had an amazing first run and was leading. His flair whip was smooth and his airs super stylish. But then Vince Byron got to work and killed it. His trick of the comp was a truck 540 to no-hander. Watch the clip on Freecaster

BMX - VERT 1st Round

Heat 1 Benjamin Kopp - Austin Coleman

Heat 2: Paul Meacher - Zack Warden

Heat 3: Zach Shaw - Francisco Zurita

Heat 4: Vince Byron - Simon Tabron

Final Four Vert:
1. Vince Byron
2. Francisco Zurita
3. Austin Coleman
4. Zack Warden

Xbox360 comp:
Michael Beran won the XBox 360 contest with the best jump that includes a 360 over the jump box. His winter days are now a bit more enjoyable.

Xbox 360 Contest
1. Michael Beran
2. Ryan Nyquist
3. Rob Darden

It was off to the afterparty which meant I was awake for over 24 hours at the end of the day. Good times though, good times.

By BdJ