Coming back after the italian nationals at the H-Farm freestyle park on Sunday for the International C1 I think we are being invaded from the UK! James Jones, Jack Maguire, Shaun Gornall and Kaine Mitchell are 4 of the 15 athletes booked for the event. The foreigners lineup is completed by Levi Weidmann (NED) Patryck Teul (POL) Marcin Oskiera (POL), Maxime Orsini (FRA) Krystof Odehnal (CZE). The Italian team is composed by Christian Ceresato, Gabriele Pala, Mattia Cazzola, Francesco Mongillo, Vittorio Galli and Elia Benetton the new Italian champion.
Alessandro Barbero left the gathering for an injury sustained yesterday during the Italian nationals. Christian Falvo, also injured, decided to stay to cheer on his teammates.
The BMX Freestyle national championships took place in Roncade, in the awesome setting of H-Farm, an international school and university campus. For some years now, the park built by Hurricanes has been the national Olympic center for this discipline. Back competing for the tricolor jersey, worn 4 times by the everlasting Alessandro Barbero in the last 5 years and only in 2021 by Francesco Mongillo.
The boys have grown a lot, thanks to the guidance of CT Ventura and the Olympic center built for them, when I arrive on site I find my long-time friends, with only Guilherme Henrique Paloschi a new face for me.
What would have been an undisputed star of the day is not there when I arrive to the park Alessandro Barbero, reigning national champion for the last three years will not compete due to an ankle injury sustained in practice. This shuffles the cards and gives to each athlete the opportunity to shake off the awe and give everything to aim for the title.
And what a battle it has been with Gabriele Pala, Emanuel Bettassa and Christian Falvo holding up the KOBRA BMX team flag, Francesco Mongillo returning from a serious ankle injury, Vittorio Galli from Milan, Ramon Francesconi and Lucas Vega from Genova and the local (and promoter of the idea that led to to this Olympic center) Elia Benetton.
In the qualifing (that count only for the starting order of the finals) almost everyone hold back the bangers for the final. Unfortunately Elia cannot keep his runs together after finishing first in the quali with some impressive lines and enormous flip transfer. Down in both his final runs he’ll have to wait a full year for another shot for the title. The scores are very close despite very different styles: Christian Falvo with the highest airs, Gabriele Pala with the technical combos, Emanuel Bettassa with his unique flow and style and Mongillo with an impressive trick variety.
Finally I have been at the ZooPark! I've travelled with VFL towards Priero to attend the C1 that Alessandro and the Italian federation organized in the park which he built near his house. I expected to have an epic day with Daniel Dhers, Daniel Wedemeijer, Nikita Ducarroz and all the athletes from our national team.
We crossed all of northern Italy, passing through Voghera to retrieve Patrick (@patriziodeturana), the best speaker in the game, up and down the hills of Barolo without even being able to taste at least a glass, pushing to start our working weekend. Unfortunately we also drove through villages severely affected by the previous day's flooding, a torment to see.
Arrived for dinner we joined the national team for a quick pizza in front of their hotel. In the team there were two newcomers, the guys who participated in the Italian championship a few weeks ago, Lucas Vega and Christian Ceresato. Unfortunately a lot of the other guys are missing due to ongoing injury.
We not stayed up late, just a couple of extra beers at the end of the dinner and straight to our rooms, Ale booked us two rooms in the hotel next to his house, so we were close by. We woke up fresh and rested
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.