It has become a reoccuring event, the Dutch National BMX Park championships. A few editions have taken place at Skateland Rotterdam and a couple at Area 51. On November 30th the Dutch park scene got together in Eindhoven for the 2024 edition. The Park had been upgrades with a spine and a smaller box jump on the street section and transfers between the bigger ramps and the new ramps were possible during the riders' runs. Anyway, a free pick to choose whatever you preferred. Jikke Schraffordt made the right choices and won the U15 women class. BMX Amsterdam also picked up the title in the U15 Men class in the name of Saimi Paulissen. Barspins, ET's, tire grabs, no-handers, X-ups. T-bos, cancans over the spine, alley-oop 270s, and a 360 over the new box jump. Saimi's run was packed and he beat Madhu Furst and his younger brother Oden to it. Scooter rider Jesse Bust decided to borrow Daniel Wedemeijer's bike and had a go at the 15+ class. And guess what, he won! In good Daan Melis fashion he showed no problems taking his scooter tricks and adapting them to the BMX bike. If Jordan Clark can do it... Jesse pulled flairs, flips, did Toboggans, cancans, 270s and 360s after only one hour on the bike. Next to scooter champ he can now add BMX champ to his C.V.
Indy Kramer did not have much competition in Elite Women but even if there would have been more girls, they would have to do well to beat Indy. Multiple Dutch champion at age 16. No-handers, 360 X-ups, T-bogs, transfers, alley-oop 270s, cancans, all on the big ramps in the park. The red/white/blue jersey will be framed at some point. Maybe.
Area 51 C1 results BMX Freestyle Park Eindhoven, Netherlands 04 December 2023
Women Park:
1 Iveta MICULYČOVÁ 18 CZE 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Indy KRÄMER 15 NED. 160.00
3 Julie PLOUSEY 21 FRA. 130.00
4 Daria DIATLOVA 25 ***. 110.00
Men Park:
1 Tom VAN DEN BOGAARD 27 NED 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Levi WEIDMANN 23 NED 160.00
3 Paul THÖLEN 25 GER 130.00
4 Yurii ILLIUSHCHENKO 23 UKR 110.00
5 Kaede OZAWA 16 JPN 90.00
6 Hans Wilhelm KITTLER 19 GER 70.00
Results Park contest Area 51. C1 BMX Freestyle Park. Eindhoven, Netherlands. 10 April 2023
Men Park:
1 Tom VAN DEN BOGAARD 27 NED 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Yurii ILLIUSHCHENKO 23 UKR 160.00
3 Jude JONES 22 GBR 130.00
4 Dylan HESSEY 20 GBR 110.00
5 Miller TEMPLE 18 GBR 90.00
6 Levi WEIDMANN 23 NED 70.00
7 Tom CLEMENS 18 GER 50.00
8 Zoltán ÚJVÁRY 23 HUN 30.00
9 Kenneth TANCRE 28 BEL 20.00
10 Reef WAY 18 GBR 10.00
11 Arjan ELLENS 27 NED
12 Timo SCHULZE 25 GER
Women Park:
1 Kim Lea MÜLLER 21 GER 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Lara Marie LESSMANN 23 GER 160.00
The Dutch qualifier of Red Bull UCI Pump Track took place Saturday in the Urban Sportpark in Eindhoven. Aiko Gommers (BEL) and Anaia Istil (FRA) took home the win and earned their spot in the World Final in Chile. The format of the Red Bull UCI Pump Track Qualifier is simple: first all riders were given two runs to set the fastest time. Then the fastest 32 men and four women battled against each other in direct duos, of which the fastest was allowed to advance to the next round.
The women's final was between the Belgian twins Aiko and Robyn Gommers. Aiko got it from her sister. She is the current world champion, and in her rainbow jersey she lived up to expectations.
Has BMX Freestyle changed? No it has not. It has added a chapter because of the Olympic Games but everyone can still 'freestyle' on his BMX bike just the way they want to. For Park riders there is now an Olympic pathway. It has lead to a structure with 200 National Cycling federations involved, a ranking and events all over the world where UCI ranking points can be scored. The structure that is set up has different level of events with National Championships and "C1" contests attributing to the rider's individual UCI ranking. The C1 contest in Eindhoven, Netherlands during the Easter weekend was used by several riders in order to score enough points to be able to enter the upcoming UCI BMX Freestyle World Cup in Montpellier, France. Thing is, with the big interest in participating at these events the 50 ranking points minimum is a first selection process to keep the Men Park event manageable. It is awesome to see the popularity of the Olympic structure which had riders from Czech, GBR, Costa Rica, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Belgium, Switzerland and of course The Netherlands show up for the C1 comp in Eindhoven for the points chase.
The level was high, especially in the Men Park class. Making a top 7 result in Eindhoven would mean a score of 50 points or more and a 'way-in' for the World Cup in Montpellier. For most it was the first contest since all hell broke loose with the Covid-19 pandemic. It felt so good to be back to normal without having to wear a mask, show a QR code or negative PCR test, respect a 'bubble' or keep a distance of 1,5 metres from th person you talk to. All restrictions were out of the window and the bar
Results UCI C1 Park contest Eindhoven, Netherlands. Monday 18 April 2022.
Women Park:
1) Valeriia Liubimova ---
2) Lara Lessmann GER
3) Kim Lea Müller GER
4) Kenza Chaal FRA
5) Ertel Lara Marie GER
6) Julie Plousey FRA
Men Park:
1) Jeanjean Anthony FRA
2) Gornall Shaun GBR
3) Chipman Jaden CAN
4) Tencio Esquivel Kenneth CRC
5) Weidmann Levi NED
6) Tancre Kenneth BEL
7) Thölen Paul GER
Pump Tracks are all the craze. Instead of leaving it up to the users to figure out what to do with it, Red Bull, in association with Velosolutions, have set up a worldwide qualification system for the World Championships which will be held in Lisbon, Portugal mid October. Litterally tons of qualifying events worldwide have taken place already and on Saturday 18 September it was Holland's turn to find out who would go to the Red Bull UCI Pump Track World's next month. These qualifiers are open for any rider (17+) to enter and with time running out, Eddy Clerté took the Dutch opportunity to try qualify for the big one in Portugal 16-17 October 2021.
It's a big mix with BMX as well as MTB riders setting a time at the beginning of the race. The goal is to set a time fast enough to make it to the top 32. There's a second opportunity to if you could not set a quick enough time in your first run. Once the 32 fastest riders are selected, it's a head-to-head system afterwards where the first place qualifier races the rider who qualified in 32nd, number 2 races number 31, etc. After each phase half of the riders make it to the next round until 2 are left for the final race of the day.
This was the first Pump Track race I've visited and I was wondering how the start of the time trial and the start of the head-to-head phases would go. In fact, there is no starting gate, and the riders all have their chains on the bike. Basically it's a rolling start where you can gain as much speed as you like
Russian Kostya Andreev grabs win at 040 Invitational Spine Ramp contest in Eindhoven, Netherlands
The E-Moves festival in Eindhoven, Netherlands once again brought BMX fans together for the second edition of the 040 Invitational Spine Ramp contest. The 040 BMX crew set up a new version of the massive miniramp in the middle of the city for the invited riders to shine. 12 riders made it to the final where Kostya Andreev meant business with back to back tricks including 3-whips to tuck over the spine and flairs to tuck no-hander. James Jones from the UK was ripping and did many variations over the spine to get second place. Belgian Kenneth Tancré rode well to get the last spot on the podium in Eindhoven with third place.
The second annual 040 Invitational BMX Spine Ramp Contest took place in Eindhoven, Netherlands last weekend and here are the results.
FINAL Results 040 Invitational Spine Ramp Contest 2017:
1 Kostya Andreev (RUS)
2 James Jones (GBR)
3 Kenneth Tancré (BEL)
4 Tom van den Bogaard (NED)
5 Zdenda Pesek (Cze)
6 Paul Thoelen (GER)
7 Cam Peake (GBR)
8 Daniel Wedemeijer (NED)
9 Sem Kok (NED)
10 Shaun Gornall (GBR)
11 Jari Roggeveen (NED)
12 Niels van Maren (NED)
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.