After the first 2021 stop in Le Havre, the French Urban Sports tour will make a stop in Canet-en-Roussillon on September 18th and 19th for BMX and Roller Freestyle Park competitions. Completed with BMX Flatland demonstrations, this free and open to all event (on presentation of a health pass) promises to bring together all generations for a weekend full of Action Sports.
French, Argentina and UK fill the podium for BMX Freestyle Park
From the start of this Sunday, the level of some young riders in the U17 category and the top of the amateurs' ranking could have justified their participation in Pro, and each contest seems to illustrate a new stage in their progression.
The Dutch Park championships took place last Sunday at Skateland in Rotterdam. Although a few riders were missing (Tom van den Bogaard's grandma turned 100 and Niels van Maren struggled with the Covid) the competition was fierce. When everyone rides at their best the vibe is good. The riders are happy with their riding and the crowd is stoked on the best riding they've ever seen the riders do. A win-win situation. 5 classes were on the program for Sunday. With practice, qualification rounds and finals it was a long day before the prizes were given out at the official ceremony in the evening. The most talented riders in each class get to call themselves Dutch champion for a year. In the Elite classes the titles went to Arjan Ellens and Jana Muradova with Thomas in 't Veld (15+), Bruno Colautti (-14) and Indy Kramer (Girls -14) winning the other categories.
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.
When the Street comp was done and dusted at the NK BMX Freestyle in Rotterdam it was time for Flatland to determine who the 2021 champions would be. A part of the Park section was used for the comp and a new crew of judges had arrived to give the right amount of points to each participant. It was the first time that Flatland was on the program for an official KNWU title and as always there's always room for improvement, especially when it comes to participation. In that respect it was good to get together and put the hammer down. Especially the Men title was a night battle between international starts Sietse van Berkel and Dez Maarsen who have represented The Netherlands on multiple occasions. It was Jorrit van Drumpt who edged out Bodean Maarsen for the
After last year's success the Dutch BMX Street championships took place at Skateland Rotterdam this past Saturday. Unfortunately 2020 Street Champion Joeri Veul has had to quit riding BMX but it was great to have him present to hand out the Red White and Blue jerseys, checks, flowers, champagne and goodies to the winners. 25 riders had signed up for BMX Street. 12 would make it to the final. Among the finalists was Park rider Jari Roggeveen who made the switch to Street for the day and was hitting the street section of Skateland Rotterdam at full speed making sure he landed to flat and hit the rail as well. Jari ended up in 2nd with a score of 77,00 points, one point more than Frank 'Powerbank' Nabuurs (3rd) and 0,33 of a point behind madman Janos Baars who started off his
Action Sports returned to Sun City as South Africa’s top BMX and Skate athletes battled it out at the 2021 ULT.X African Championships powered by Suzuki. The world-class park setup, with both park and street style obstacles, made for an exciting weekend of closely fought contests. In the BMX Finals it was Murray Loubser who came out on top claiming victory. Although riding with an injured knee Loubser chose to ride the full course with flow and concentrate on the tricks he knew he’d land, the approach paid off scoring 78.51. Even with the injury his run was stacked with tricks like the Switch 360 Lookback, Barspin to Wallride, Double Truckdriver on the park side of the course, and on the street side of the course a Switch Snaggletooth down the handrail, Crank on Grind to Barspin, and Tooth Hard 180.
Malcolm Peters, knowing Loubser had the street style tricks on lock, concentrated on throwing his biggest trick in the park section of the course. Flip and Flair variations where the order of the day and his Backflip Turndown, Backflip Tailwhip and Flair Table slotted him into 2nd with a score of 73.08.
An always consistent and technical Francois Bodenstein rounded out the podium in 3rd place with a score of 71.41. Sticking to his gameplan his run included a 720, 360 Tailwhip, Backflip, Alleyoop 540, and 270 Tailwhip to name a few.
Always a podium contender, Vincent Leygonie couldn’t put it together in the final and had to settle
Results 2021 Italian BMX PARK National Championships
BMX Park Men:
1 Francesco MONGILLO 200
2 Emanuel BETTASSA 160
3 Gabriele PALA 130
4 Christian FALVO 110
5 Vittorio Ludovico Germano GALLI 90
6 Ramon FRANCESCONI 70
The 2021 Eurobike bicycle trade show also had to deal with the corona virus. The show was smaller than usual but with two BMX shows doing several demos per day it sure gave us a good reason to drive down to the Lake of Konstanz in the very south of Germany. The flatland demos were done by the Deep BMX crew and included the 2019 UCI Flatland World Champion Dom Nekolny as well as Martin Drazil. On the Braun the sessions were heating up with a bunch of solid riders including Tom van den Bogaard, Evan Brandes, Tobias Freigang, Dean Florian, Sikharin Supanmart, Jan Mihaly, Timo Schulze and Paul Thölen.
With fitting music and a good MC, the people who took a break on checking out the 2022 bicycles got to see the latest in BMX tricks. The Braun Spine Mini proved its value and offered a challenging ramp for spine tricks and the extension was there for the daredevils to step it up. With two days of sunshine and perfect weather for good miniramp sessions the crowd was treated with flair whips (Schulze), triple barspin 540's (Sikharin), whip to footjam whip to footjam whip (Florian), double downside whips (Tom) and brakeless barspin tailtaps on the extension to fakie by Paul Thoelen. Shows like these where riders naturally get pushed to 'one-up' each other can explode pretty quickly. Doing improvised runs together on the spine mini at the same time did the job for the Eurobike public. Good stuff people, good stuff.
Results 2021 Russian National BMX PARK Championships. Kazan. 4-5 September 2021.
Men Park:
1 RIZAEV Irek RUS 200 UCI points
2 GILIMZIANOV Roman RUS 160
3 NIKULIN Aleksandr RUS 130
4 AKHMETZYANOV Jamil RUS 110
5 ISAKOV Nikita RUS 90
6 AGARKOV Artem RUS 70
7 FOMINOV Nikita RUS 50
8 MOLLAEV Aleksandr RUS 30
9 OKATYEV Mikhail RUS 20
10 ANDREEV Konstantin RUS 10
11 ZHURAVLEV Pavel RUS
Results USA BMX Freestyle National Series Round 5 Park - Woodward, PA - 05 September 2021.
Park Men:
1 BRUCE Nick USA 200 UCI points
2 FOX Brian USA 160
3 TRYON Bryce USA 130
4 STONE Kaden USA 110
5 DALTON John USA 90
6 MEIER Andrew USA 70
7 PAUZA Chase USA 50
8 MCCALLISTER Nate USA 30
9 LEITE DE OLIVEIRA Douglas BRA 20
10 CEDANO CABRERA Jose CHI 10
11 BAKER Brady USA
12 ALCAYAGA REVECO Nicolas CHI
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.