On the first day off in Bogotá the plan was to meet up with Hiroshi Euhara and the Palencia brothers to see what the local BMX freestyle scene had to offer. When Esteban and Sebastian told me there were at least 10 core BMX shops I was surprised to hear that. We first stopped at Fuel BMX Distribution. They import brands like Federal, Tallorder and Fiction BMX and have 'core products from several other brands available at their shop. Entering the shop it felt like a real BMX shop which offered only BMX Freestyle products. Fuel distro has been supporting the scene for many years and it was a good first stop of the day.
Up next was a shop called Stike, located at Cra 52a #45a-29sur in Bogota. Also here the feeling was
Lithuanian National BMX PARK Championships Panevezys, Lithuania 17 September 2022
Men Park:
1 Martynas LAGAUSKAS 26 LTU 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Deividas BUDKOVAS 30 LTU 160.00
3 Erikas MAJAUSKAS 18 LTU 130.00
4 Rytis RUTKAUSKAS 28 LTU 110.00
5 Karolis LAMSARGIS 29 LTU 90.00
6 Tautvydas GELUMBICKAS 30 LTU 70.00
7 Martynas SASNAUSKAS 24 LTU 50.00
8 Marek BELIAK 18 LTU 30.00
9 Domantas ZEMECKIS 28 LTU 20.00
Live broadcast from the Extreme Barcelona 2022 BMX Men Park final. 18 September 2022 / Parc del Fòrum, Barcelona.
Results Japanese National PArk Championship Okayama shi, Okayama prefecture, Japan 16 - 18 September 2022
Men Park:
1 Rimu NAKAMURA 20 JPN 89.25 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Kaede OZAWA 15 JPN 72.62 160.00
3 Joji MIZOGAKI 16 JPN 70.75 130.00
4 Masaki TERABAYASHI 15 JPN 67.62 110.00
5 Akira TAKAHASHI 18 JPN 65.73 90.00
6 Seimei OKADA 19 JPN 62.37 70.00
7 Haruhiko OWA 20 JPN 61.62 50.00
8 Tatsuki KAMIMURA 15 JPN 60.37 30.00
9 Toshio TAKAGI 33 JPN 20.00
10 Shunya ISHII 16 JPN 10.00
11 Sky ITO 16 JPN
12 Kotaro KAISE 17 JPN
Women Park:
Japanese National Flatland Championship Okayama shi, Okayama prefecture, Japan
Flatland Men:
1 Kio HAYAKAWA 20 JPN 92.75 200.00 UCI ranking points
2 Moto SASAKI 37 JPN 91.13 160.00
3 Masato ITO 32 JPN 90.13 130.00
4 Yu SHOJI 20 JPN 88.88 110.00
5 Fumiya KANNA 30 JPN 88.75 90.00
6 Hiroya MORIZAKI 44 JPN 87.00 70.00
7 Takahiro IKEDA 32 JPN 81.50 50.00
8 Takahiro ENOKI 50 JPN 66.50 30.00
9 Yuya SHIGA 24 JPN 20.00
10 Takumi ISOGAI 20 JPN 10.00
11 Yoshihiro SHINDE 43 JPN
Flatland Women:
Results Spanish National Championships - Flatland. Madrid, Spain 10 September 2022
Men Flatland:
1 Varo HERNANDEZ 27 ESP 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Alberto MOYA FERNANDEZ 32 ESP 160.00
3 Alvaro RUIZ - VALDEPEÑAS ABAD 23 ESP 130.00
Results Czech National Championship - Park Pardubice, Czech Republic 11 September 2022
Men Park:
1 Tomáš BERAN 23 CZE 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Martin HABADA 22 CZE 160.00
3 Jan BROŽA 19 CZE 130.00
4 Daniel MLEJNEK 31 CZE 110.00
5 Jakub MELOUN 15 CZE 90.00
6 Tomáš BOREK 17 CZE 70.00
7 Mikuláš ŘEHOŘÍK 19 CZE 50.00
8 David JANÁČ 36 CZE 30.00
9 Ondřej BARANEC 16 CZE 20.00
10 Lukáš ZDRAŽIL 16 CZE 10.00
Women Park:
1 Iveta MICULYČOVÁ 17 CZE 200.00 UCI Ranking points
2 Kateřina JALŮVKOVÁ 25 CZE 160.00
To make it to the BMX freestyle Park program at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris is not an easy task. Only 12 Men and 12 Women will be able to participate on the Olympic stage which will be built up at the Place de La Concorde in the summer of 2024. The Olympic Qualifying process has been announced and the points chase for quota places for Continental Championships and World Championships has started already. The more points the top two riders of a nation gather, the more riders (of that nation) will be able to participate at the bigger events in 2023/2024. Time has started for the top two riders to move their country up in the nation ranking. Throwing C1 events is a way for federations to offer their local riders an event that they can attend without having to travel far. At the BMX Open in Rotterdam on 4 September the Dutch Park riders showed up as well as a big delegation from Hungary, a German, and a rider from Slovakia.
The level of riding these days is insane. Double whips, barspin backflips, and truckdrivers have almost become 'filler tricks'. It's key to stand out from the pack by going higher, doing transfers no one else is doing, bring tricks that nobody else can do and pack as many of them in a 60 second run without making any mistakes using the entire course. Place #11 could have won an event only a few years ago but the level keeps going up making it hard for the riders to stay on top of things. At the end of the day it was Tom van den Bogaard (NED) who grabbed the 200 UCI ranking points at Skateland in front of #2 Zoltan Ujvary (HUN) and #3, youngster Tom Clemens (GER).
What started in 1987 as a street jam was continued at the Sugar Hills trails with the focus on riding dirt. In fact we did three street jams in Aarle-Rixtel before moving to De Valkendijk where the dirt spot has seen annual action for over 32 years now. Is the FATJAM the longest running annual BMX jam in the world? This past Saturday 3 September called for another one. The process remains the same; pick a date, make a flyer, tell people about the jam, and wait and see who turns up.
For the 2022 edition we added a 40-years EK Beek & Donk reunion. The Milky Way Open European Championships happened 40 years ago on our local BMX track in Beek & Donk a few miles from Aarle-Rixtel. If you wanted to talk oldskool BMX, the FATJAM was the place. Gerrit and Mieke Does, and Pieter Does made it to the jam early and first international visitor in 1982 Thomas Fritscher (GER) found his way back to Aarle-Rixtel as well. Former BMX photographer Christ Verhoeven and his son Gert showed up and contributed to the old stories as did Ans Vereijken, Tiny van Brug, André Duijmelink, Jan, Leo and Diny Leenders, Richard Waldt and Johan de Leeuw. Names who probably don't mean much to current BMX riders but were there when BMX was shaped. With 1982 EK Beek & Donk buttons and Milky Ways on the table the old stories came back instantly.
Add Frits van der Linden on the BBQ and a JBL producing songs and you'll get the idea where things were going with some cool Bavaria's being opened from time to time....
Results BMX Park C1 contest held at Skateland, Rotterdam on Sunday 4 September 2022.
Men Park:
1. Tom van den Bogaard
2. Zoltan Ujvary
3. Tom Clemens
4. Zoltan Kempf
5. Kornel Ficsor
6. Kristóf Krausz
7. Arjan Ellens
8. Gergö Zöld
9. Pim Scheers
10. Tibor Szepesi
11. Thomas Tohol
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.