../events/2002 Worlds Cologne

Sources: www.spokesmen.no, www.agoride.com, Soul #21 august september 2002, Freedom #47, Cream #18 october 2002, theflatlander.com, ...
If you want to add any info, please contact buissonrouge@23mag.com.
Place: Cologne (Allemagne), Jugendpark.
Date: july 2002

The worlds is not really a world championship. It's more like a bike festival with some of the best riders in the world present. Which again means that the riding was really good.

www.agoride.com: Les gardiens de l'entrée aux carrures impressionnantes vérifient à chaque fois que le numéro de votre bracelet correspond à celui de votre vélo histoire d'éviter les vols. Une fois passé ce cordon sanitaire, le park au bord du fleuve vous ouvre ses bras On peut aller partout, point de barrières infranchissables comme au FISE, ici ; place à la détente. On s'installe où on veut, du moment qu'on ne gêne ni les riders dans leur run, ni les juges dans leur travail. Tous se mélangent dans un cadre idyllique: riders pros, expert et masters; public plus ou moins averti... dans le même but, assister à un bon contest. Dès l'entrée du park se déroule sur quelques mètres des stands de magasins, vêtements ou marque de BMX. De suite après les stands, sur la gauche le dirt au milieu des arbres, se trouve ensuite l'aire de street, et au pied de celle-ci des escaliers formant des gradins. Un peu plus loin, on retrouve côte-à-côte une superbe mini à spine de 2 mètres de haut et de 10 mètres de large surmonté d'une subbox; et une big (Red Bull). Enfin, juste avant le camping, à l'abri des regards indiscrets et de la pluie on découvre l'aire de flat, sous une tente pouvant être éclairée et entièrement bâchée sur les côtés.

www.spokesmen.no: There was a premiere on the new Etnies Video Forward on saturday. It was a bit to much light in the beginning of the video, but after a while it became better. And it's something you just need for your VCR. Stew from Props was also over, and he had the latest Props #45. So we saw that one too.

Matt Beringer: That was like one of the best contests ever that I've been to. Just the crowd was just like screaming and like, oh man, it was just nuts. Every time somebody would do something the full crowd was just: Yeahhh, you know, they'd just go nuts which is cool to see.
DIRT
Deux doubles bosses géantes suivies d'un hip en terre.

Two big sets first (with three different take offs) followed by a huge hip (7 feet high) to the left or to the right. It was basically a take off with a huge spine behind it made out of dirt.

The dirt finals was moved from friday to saturday after a latvian rider crashed hard on a doubleflip. It looked like he could have been paralized, but the report on saturday was that he only had gotten a very bad concussion. Lucky devil.
Ryan Nyquist (HARO) pulled flips, 360s and more. Everything superhigh and supersmooth.
Ryan Jordan (Fly bikes) took second. His list of tricks was 360s and I think there was a tailwhip in there as well. Don't remember everything.
Colin MacKay took third place. He pulled 360s, tailwhips and a tailwhip to full barspin on the hip.

Steve Murray was back in Europe trying a little too hard and crashing some, but pulled the 360-flip-turndown over the hip.

PRO DIRT RESULTS: 1.Nyquist, Ryan USA 2.Jordan, Ryan USA 3.MacKay Colin Australia 4.Pundai, Brandan USA 5.Pinter, Heath USA 6.Noirot, Romuald France 7.Mahoney, Chris England 8.Lotterle, Marvin USA 9.Wullschleger, Thomas Switzerland 10.Hampl, Markus Germany 11.Forte, Kye England 12.Pulsen, Benjamin Germany 13.Renaud, Stéphane France 14.Murray, Stephen England 15.Levan,Jimmy 16.Dropsy, Alex France 17.Kompaore, Laurent Koum France 18.Barret, Ryan USA 19.Bertier, Nicolas France 20.Borel, Frederic Switzerland 21.Sibeth, Gael France 22.Jacquemard, Christophe France 23.Jansen, Sören Germany 24.Carson, Sandy Scotland 25.Beringer, Matt USA 26.Kaspars, Skrebs Latvia 27.Heino, Josh USA 28.Röstlund, Jimmy Sweden 29.De Lannoy, Jean Netherlands 		bibi soul bmx 08 02
Romuald bibi Noirot tailwhip sur le hip en couverture du Soul d'août 2002. Photo by GRV.
STREET
Un container wall et un wall courbé avec juste à côté un hip. Au milieu de l'aire, deux spines juxtaposés dont un surmonté d'une rembarde (sub-rail). Sur la gauche de ce module, il y a deux quarters espacés et reliés entre eux par un rail puis en face du spine, un autre container avec subbox, walls et de chaque côté un quarter.Il y avait aussi deux tables en bois et bancs (qui ont pas servi à grand chose mis à part faire joli) et enfin des plans inclinés avec un ledge et un rail.

EXPERTS: Street expert prelims were held when the place had dried up. 163 riders. Fortunately not all of them showed up. Riders do get inventive when they do not have enough money. They figured out that registering for the contest was cheaper than paying the entry fee to get in all weekend. Free party entrance too if you're a rider so that's a bonus. 20 riders made it to the final, it took a couple of hours to get that far.

EXPERTS STREET RESULTS 1 Balkmann Martin Germ 83,40 2 Szabo Laszio Hungary 82,30 3 Wehlisch Tobias Germ 80,50 4 Condrup Christopher Norway 78,60 5 Feifer Kamil Cez. Rep. 78,40 6 Boucher Hugues Belgium 77,90 7 Tejkl Georg Germany 77,40 8 Zimmermann Christian Germany 77,20 9 Köhne Barry Netherlands 75,60 10 Bohl Alain France 74,10 11 Barrere David France 74,00 12 Kaykha Sas Germany 73,80 13 Valenta Jan Cez, Rep. 72,60 Karius Mario Germany 72,60 15 Kazumian Ruben Belgium 71,90 16 Arethuse Alex France 70,40 17 Kester Christian Germany 70,20 18 Zronek Thomas Austria 67,40

MASTERS STREET RESULTS 1 Cools, Hannu Belgium 91,80 2 Rutm, Antonio Portugal 90,40 3 Surridge Ronnie Eng 86,60 4 Bacuet, Pascal France 86,00 5 Braumann, Markus Germany 85,60 6 Holzinger, Daniel Germany 85,00 7 Cools, Sig Belgium 84,40 8 Sera, Pedro Portugal 83,00 9 Cambon, Nicolas France 83,00 10 Vernisson, Benoit France 82,60 11 Durieux, Olivier France 81,40 12 Sezza, Daniel F. Matos Portugal 80,80 13 Cordier, Berenger France 80,60 14 Viktor, Bako Hungary 78,60 15 Novotny, André Germany 70,40 16 Pentelow, Karl England 69,20

PROS: 40 pros inscrits.
Ryan Nyquist (Haro) won. He did rocket-wallrides, a nosebonk to nohander over the subrail-spine, a nice footplant-invert on the ramp-to-wall. And as a last trick he did a 360-lookup-backflip over the spine. Trick of the day !
John Heaton (MacNeil) ended his run with a flip to manual to fakie and had a great run that also included a quarterpipe flyout-to-manual on the subcontainer. he also went for a quarterpipe-to-nosebonk-to-manual.on the wallride on the other side.
Dave Osato (WTP) ended third in a run that included nosepick-tailwhips, manual to tailwhip off the container-sub, tailwhip dropin from the top of the container, ....
Clint Millar: whip nosepick on the sub rail
Shea Nyquist: foot plant sur le sub rail, flip to sprocket sur un quarter.
Bruce Crisman: axel grind en remontant un ledge to manual to sproket grind sur le rail de l'autre côté.
Sergio Layos: 3/6 turndown to x-up sur le spine.
Ryan Jordan: sortie des tables en bois en truck driver
Sandy Carson (Scotland) came up short on a wallride transfer (to instant stop)
Ruben Alcantara (Spain) ended up in the crowd face first when his incredible transfer attempt went wrong.

PRO STREET RESULTS 1 Nyquist, Ryan USA 95,40 2 Heaton, John Canada 93,10 3 Osato, Dave Canada 89,40 4 Mackay, Colin Australia 88,50 5 Forte, Kye England 85,30 6 Mahoney, Chris England 82,00 7 Layos, Sergio Spain 81,90 8 Wilke, Markus Germany 81,80 9 Wicke, Tobias Germany 81,60 10 Stuyvesant, Ty USA 80,60 11 Carson, Sandy Scotland 80,10 12 Manuel, Ben England 78,80 13 Alcantara, Ruben Canada 78,70 14 Millar, Clint Australia 72,20 15 Hansen, Thomas Denmark 68,90 16 Jordan, Byan USA 6,10 17 Crisman, Bruce USA 0,00
Dave Freimuth

bruce crisman freedom bmx
Bruce Crisman. Photo by Kay Clauberg.
MINI RAMPE
The 7 feet high mini had a spine and a 4 feet high sub box on one side.

Ryan Nyquist (Haro) did truckdrivers over the spine, 9 feet high barspins, nosebonks to suicide no-hander over the spine and after a few tries he also nailed a flair in the mini ramp.
Dave Osato (WTP) did a manual on the big sub to tailwhip in. He ended second.
Colin MacKay ended third...
Tobias Wicke, from Germany, did the raddest tricks of the comp doing a downside peg grind on the subbox and a tailwhip to fakie.

PRO MINI RAMPE RESULTS 1 Nyquist, Ryan USA 93,40 2 Osato, Dave Canada 92,20 3 MacKay Colin Australia 90,40 4 Millar, Clint Australia 87,20 5 Wicke, Tobias Germany 85,60 6 Crisman, Bruce USA 83,40 7 Guerrard, Pascal France 82,60 8 Ortega, Javier Spain 81,80 9 Mahoney, Chris England 81,20 10 Manuel, Ben England 80,00 11 Heino, Josh USA 76,80 12 Jacob, Sebo Germany 76,00

MASTERS MINI RAMPE RESULTS 1 Lubitz, Stefan Germany 88,70 2 Holzinger Daniel Germ 88,40 3 Köhler Christian Germ 84,40 4 Bacuet, Pascal France 84,00 5 Sera, Pedro Portugal 80,50 6 Cools, Hannu Belgium 80,30 7 Cools, Sig Belgium 77,60 8 Kuusisto, Kai Finland 76,30 9 König, Markus Germany 75,10 10 Oitjon, Dominik Germany 72,90 11 Sandfort, Roland Germany 70,80

EXPERTS MINI RAMPE RESULTS 1 Jaeger Volkan Germany 89,50 2 Bohl Alain France 89,38 3 Boucher Hugues Belgium 88,70 4 Scheibe René Germany 87,70 5 Tejkl Georg Germany 84,80 6 Wenger Janick Suisse 84,40 7 Dietrich Lars Germany 83,90 8 Ellis Stuard England 83,10 9 Köhne Barry Netherlands 81,60 10 Jaeger Joachim Germany 79,60
VERT
Simon Tabron (Mongoose) did flairs, 540s, high airs and ended the run with a 900, which he first overrotated. He did the trick for Stephan Prantl (WTP), who he said, just before he dropped in: runs the best contest in the world.
Eduardo Terreros (Fly bikes) took second with high silksmooth airs, flairs, 540s and more. Tabron got 95 points, while Terreros got 91,80, but it was much closer.
Zach Shaw (WTP) ended third with nice high airs, 540s and a huge flair to icepick.
Stephan Geisler (Perv) took fourth place.

PRO VERT RESULTS 1 Tabron, Simon UK 95,00 2 Terreros Eduardo Spain 91,80 3 Shaw, Zach England 87,20 4 Geisler, Stefan Germany 86,00 5 Kujawski, Achim Germany 79,80 6 Kopp, Benni Germany 78,60 7 Mullen, Mike England 76,80 8 Reinke, Alex Germany 74,20 9 Remo, Ronnie England 73,20 10 Eichert, Tim Germany 72,00 11 Nieuwenhuys, Sander Netherlands 67,00 12 Munoz, Cruz Mexico 66,40

MASTERS VERT RESULTS 1 Gfrörer Lars Germany 91,90 2 Etzold Alex Germany 89,60 3 Dorn Roger Germany 86,70

EXPERTS VERT RESULTS 1 Valenta Jan Czech. 76,00 2 Wenger Janick Suisse 64,20 3 Kirsch Lars Germany 61,40 4 Stadnicki Jakub Poland 57,80 5 Jurcovich Nicolas France 56,40 6 Przedwojewski Philip Poland 55,30 7 Dietrich Lars Germany 52,60 8 Collin Terence Belgium 50,20

 HIGH AIR
Simon Tabron got highest. He peeked at around 11ft, while Eduardo Terreros got second.
FLAT
Lain Young, theflatlander.com: The BMX world championships in Cologne 2002 must be the biggest non ESPN BMX event of the year so it had a lot of expectation placed on it. This event's absence from the BMX calendar last year meant this was my first visit to this competition and I arrived two days early on the Tuesday. I was expecting to be one of the first people there, being so early for a four day event, but after taking a quick ride into the town centre with a friend I ended up meeting German, French and Japanese flatlanders almost straight away, all of whom were extremely friendly as flatlanders seem to be everywhere I travel. Anyway we ended up having a jam session in the large smooth square in front of the picturesque cathedral, which is the main tourist attraction in the city. This spot seems to be the best in the area and was the scene of many sessions for riders of all levels throughout the event, at night and during the day (there's even a covered section in case it rains). Anyway back to the comp, the flatland event was held on a sort of wooden raised platform that was covered by a tent. The surface worried me at first, as I'd heard about the surface at last year's Urban Games in London which wasn't too hot, but it turned out to be pretty good - flat, smooth but a little dusty. To one side of the platform was grandstand seating, that side of the tent could be removed allowing spectators to watch the riders clear of the floor space. The tent also had its own lighting and stereo system so was sessioned almost 24 hours a day. The amount of riders that turned out for this event took me aback a little and showed real promise for the future of flat with 90 riders entering expert, 80 masterclass and 40 pros not to mention the riders who turned up to watch. The comp seemed to live up to its name too as I met people from twelve different countries and there were probably way more nationalities than that there. The amount of non-riding spectators watching the flatland was also impressive with the grandstand seating and all around the tent packed for all of the pro competition. Anyway, on to the competition itself. The pros ran in three heats and were judged by a four man international panel with the top 18 riders making the cut for the final. In the couple of days practice before the first of the heats some sick riding was going down with all the pros looking really good so it was going to be interesting come the comp to see who could pull it all together. The eventual winner of the contest was the golden child of flatland himself, Mr.Martti Kuoppa. I have to say I wasn't even sure if he would make that final as his qualifying run was a little sketchy but his final run was practically flawless and he threw down some of the most original and most technically difficult ticks around. The most notable of his moves includes cross-legged two footed no handed hang nothing (or something like that) from which he jumped to a crackpacker and kick flipped halfpackers. The second place man, Michael Steingräber, was in my opinion amazing. I can't really pick out one particular amazing trick from his run but that's not to say that he wasn't pulling hard moves - but he was just so dialled and smooooth that they kind of melted one in to the other. I think in his final run he only came off once, which must have barely cost him the win, throughout the run the guy was pure confidence to say the least, at no point did he look like there was any move he wouldn't pull. Next in the order was third place Viki Gomez who pulled his usual array of long combos with his styley Spanish flair, again he was another rider who seemed to struggle a little in practice but managed to pull it out in his final run. One of the most noteworthy riders in the final was fifth place Marco Jesus from Brazil whom I'd never heard of before but this guy is mad. He rides every move at about a hundred miles an hour, the most memorable being a carved deathtruck which he takes in tight then put both hands on the pegs and spins pretty much on the spot for three rotations before pulling out of the move, he threw in a couple of barspins for good measure. Thinking further down the order a few others stand out in my mind, firstly Alex Jumelin who has now got his turbined cliffhangers down so well that he can just spin them faster than anyone I've seen with his hands just comfortably down at his waist (looks sooo easy). Next another Frenchman, Jimmy Petitet, who finished up in tenth place but rode brakeless with unbelievable flow and style, he had a near flawless qualifying run (ranking fourth) and if his final run had been as good he would surely have placed way higher - he was still however a pleasure to watch. Michael Sommer was also looking real good throughout practice with moves like jumping from the back pegs to a spinning steamroller on the pedal throwing in a 540 barflip on the way - unfortunately he slipped down in the order due to a few mistakes in his final run. All in all the final was amazing to say the least with so many quality riders from around the world, it must have been so hard to judge, at the end of the day it was always going to come down to who could actually stick their run when it mattered and once again Martti lived up to his reputation. Some other points of interest from the worlds were some of the new products to be seen on the pros bikes, I saw three new frames - the fly bikes prototype (ridden by both Phil and Viki) with lighter dropouts/backend and a euro bottom bracket which makes the whole thing very light. Jimmy Petitet's prototype signature frame (my favourite frame there - the companies called 'Fifth' I think) which looks a little like a WTP pony but with narrower tubing which is also very light indeed. Finally, the new OG frame which comes with or without a platform, it looks a little like a London bikes geometry-wise but has a wrap around headtube gusset with horizontal hole through it (formed by a piece of tubing being welded sideways into he gusset). I also noticed Mike S was using a new variation of his pegs which seemed to have shallower grooves allowing the inside to be machined out to a larger diameter making them lighter. Anyway that's about it for the worlds 2002, as a rider and a spectator I was blown away by the contest and would recommend a trip to the worlds to anyone, it's given me such inspiration to improve my riding and was simply a brilliant trip and a well organised event.

PRO FLAT RESULTS 1-Kuoppa Martti Finland 2-Steingräber Michael 3-Gomez Jorge Viki 4-Jumelin Alex France 5-Jesus Marcos Brasil 6-OBrien Simon Australia 7-Dolan Philip England 8-Sommer Michael Austria 9-Akira Okamura Japan 10-Petitet Jimmy France 11-Lukas Frank Germany 12-Morizaki Hiroya Japan 13-Pospischil Sebastian Germany 14-Catlow Effraim England 15-Yamamoto Ryoji Japan 16-Kawamura Takuma Japan 17-Röse Matti Germany 18-Melo Pedro Portugal

MASTERS FLAT RESULTS 1-Kun Adam Hungary 2-Früh Philipp Germany 3-Scheid Roman Germany 4-Grubinger Sebastian Austria 5-Gyenes Pal Hungary 6-Gabor, Pòntor Hungary 94,00 7 Laukkanen, Jussi Finland 93,00 8 Linqvist, Andreas Sweden 92,00 9 Blatter, Steven Switzerland 91,00 10 Mahlert, Martin Germany 90,00 11 Sauter, Wolfgang Germany 89,00 12 Nagao, Yuichirou Japan 88,00 13 Vassilakis, George Greece 87,00 14 Noyer, Thomas France 86,00 15 Dino R., Jeffers UK 85,00 16 Hirsch, Thomas Germany 84,00 17 Hanzl, Mirek Cez. Rep. 83,00 18 Böhm, Chris Germany

EXPERTS FLAT RESULTS 1 Menyhart Imre Hungary 84,60 2 Suba Mihaly Hungary 81,80 3 Guyennon Florent France 80,80 4 Györi Csaba Hungary 79,60 5 De los Rios David France 76,20 6 Nitschke Nico Germany 75,60 7 Penichault Bruno France 74,60 8 Benjamin Clouet France 74,20 9 Wahlström Staffan Sweden 73,40 10 Majsak Filip Poland 73,20 11 Völler Robert Hungary 71,80 12 Lehner Walter Austria 71,40 13 Duncker Thorben Germany 69,80 14 Föllner Ronny Germany 68,60 15 De Groot Koen Netherlands 68,20 16 Quitter Tino Germany 67,40 17 Burke Graeme Canada 65,80 18 Hermann Guido Germany
Phil Dolan.