Disciplines: Street - Experts, Masters, Pro, Girls; Dirt - Combined category; Vert - Combined category; Minirampa - All categories; Flat - All categories + Girls
The floor: The flatland area was outside, no cover, so the sun hit the riders (and other people like the public and filmers like me) hard causing serious sunburn, profound sweating and severe thirst. The floor was made of wooden boards, some shifted a bit and it wasn't exactly level everywhere. A lot of riders complained about it, luckily the organisation recognized this problem so they ordered new wooden boards and the floor was to be taken out and a new one was to be put in. But then rain started on Saturday morning, so the whole flatland competition was moved to the street area which was covered and thus stayed dry.
Expert class: On thursday we arrived at the venue and found the flatland area. The wooden floor was already packed with riders doing their thing in the blazing sunshine. Expert qualifications were today so lots of expert riders from all over the world were practising their tricks, getting ready for their moment of truth. When I mean riders from all over the world, I do actually mean riders from all over the world, riders like Paul Chamberlain from the UK, Ido Rosen from Israel, Alain Ballering from Holland, Max Andreev from Russia, Tom Marsh from Scotland, Csaba Bozso from Hungary, Rui Cataloa from France, Mislav Streicher from Croatia, Graeme Burke from the USA, Lorenzo Duranti from Italy and many many more. 53 to be exact. Of course lots of riders from the Czech Republic representing their country! The level of riding was actually very high and there were a lot of good tricks and combo's to be seen. After the dust settled 12 riders continued to the finals which were held on Saturday. Rain forced the organisers to move the contest into the street area so we continued there. Most riders didn't mind the change because here the floor was asphalt instead of uneven wooden boards, so an improvement indeed!In the end Oenes Katona took first place with nice flowing combo's, Michal Dufek took second and Csaba Bozso third. Congratulations, guys!
Master Class: Many of my good friends had to compete in Master Class, people like Milan Haspeklo from the Czech Republic, backwheel wizard Benjamin Grossjohan from Germany, Viking Team rider Yannick Chauvel from France, Olli Mueller from Switzerland and the small guy with the big smile, Alehandro Alexandridis from Greece. Together with the other riders in this class they tried their best for a place in the finals. Alex Jumelin fourth placeAgain 12 riders entered the finals with great riding, John Leblond from Grenoble, France, flashing his breakless Jesse-style riding for 6th place. Alehandro flowing his smooth frontwheel combo's: pinkies, backwards pedal hang-5s, tomahawks, for 5th place. Yannick Chauvel did very well too, taking 4th place back to Normandy, France. Milan taking his long technical combos to 3rd place, Hungarian rider Tamas Mazan with very cool and technical stuff ending up in second place and because of a very good run with crazy backwheel tricks, Benjamin Grossjohan is the Master World Champion.
Pro Class: All the big pro riders were there so it was going to be one hell of a contest. A big posse from Japan with super riders like Hiro, Akira, Yanmar, Seiji and some other riders like Shinichiro and Uchi. Who? Uchi! Yohei Uchino! A kid on a wine-red bike causing havoc on the flatland floor! His superfast turbine halfpackers and crackpackers send dust flying all over the place. I saw Shinichiro on video about 3 years ago, he was here too with very cool pinky and whiplash combo's. Of course Euro Big Guns like Martti Kuoppa, Viki Gomez, Kimmo Hakaana, Michael Sommer and Effraim Catlow were present. Lots of German pros: Frank, Seppl, Sven, Wolfgang, Dan & Chris, Flo, Daniel Fuhrmann and Mike S. (where was Matti Rose???) And of course my Stereo Panda friends Alex and Raphael (Jimmy was around too, but he didn't ride), Matt Wilhelm from the US and of course Jesse Puente. In total 47 pros entered the competition so there was enough to see. With so many amazing riders, qualifying is a victory in itself, lots of very good riders didn't make the cut. Origninal UK warrior Lee Musslewhite for example, he tried to do a big combo in which he could do all his signature tricks but wasn't able to pull it. Wastl from Austria, Bram Verhallen from Holland, Alexis from France, Adam Kun from Hungary, Dan Hennnig from Germany and many other riders did not ride good enough to make it to the finals. Matt Wilhelm, the King of Spin from Chicago qualified first with a great run!
Ryoji cross foot hand McCirIn the finals Frank Lukas did his best to nail his crazy spinning tricks, but mister Lowcash couldn't nail it down to get into the top 3. Place 8 for him. Wolfgang rode really bad, normally he rides very consistent, and in practise everything looked good but in the finals he lost his cool. 9th place for him. Martti rode even worse, he didn't pull anything. 10th place for the KGB head honcho. Uchi must have had one drink too many at the party on saturday night because it looked like he just couldn't hold on to his bike which is a bad thing when you're spinning at 100 miles/hour! 11th place for him. Talking about too many drinks.... Jesse didn't even show up for the finals! Chi-Town Rolla Matt Wilhelm could not reproduce his killer run he pulled in the qualifiers, so 7th place for him. Hiro rode supergood and took 6th place, very subtle, technical switches and a very powerful style! The Gypsy from Malaga and Backwheel Mastermind Nathan Penonzek whipped, rolled, scuffed and switched himself onto 5th place. Parisian Ninja Alex Jumelin pulled some nasty combos out of his pink hat to take 4th place! And here he is again, Yanmar from Japan with a run that is so full of high-tech switches and tricks it's ming-boggling! A pity that he couldn't finish his links without touches. 3rd place for him. I've seen Viki ride better than this, now mind me, the things he does are spectacular but he couldn't keep it all together and he had to be content with 2nd place. It's Michael Sommer who beat them all! Yes, Michael just gave it his best shot and finally it's there: the title of World Champion 2005 goes to Vienna, Austria, to Michael Sommer! Congratulations, Michi!
The end: Well, that wraps it all up I guess. Thanks to GSMA, the organisers, and especially to my good friend Marlene for helping me out and taking such good care of me! Thanks to all the sponsors for making it happen. I have to say that this was the best Worlds I've been to but that has a lot to do with the beautifull city of Prague, their good people, the Duplex club, the metro system, cheap food and the cheap drinks! Untill we meet again I say: ride on! Peace!
www.bmxworlds05.com: The first on the flat were the experts, and not surprisingly there was a whole dozen of them:-) In this "lowest performance" category Katona Oenes shined the most. Right behind him on the scoreboard was the Czech Michal Dufek.
Following the experts, the pros appeared on the scene and their aim was qualification. On the radiuses, seats and just about everywhere possible, the spectators packed the street park. The dj got the machines running, giving each rider the tune that rider had selected for performing his style-ride. The stuff that was going on must have blown away even a complete newcomer to the sport. Cool and easy music and absolutely unbelievable turns and twists…The crowd’s favorites were no doubt the Japanese killers with their speed rides and turns. The jury might have not seen it that way, but it certainly wasn’t giving away its emotions as blatantly as the crowd… For completeness, altogether 47 riders took part in the flat pro qualifications. The winner was Matt Wilhem. The Czech republic was represented by only one rider, and that was Mirek Hanl aka Strejc…
Expert Flat: 1.Katona Oenes 2.Dufek Michal 3.Bozso Csaba 4.Szajer Gergo 5.Chamberlain Paul 6.Durantini Lorenzo 7.Kiss Norbert 8.Andreev Max 9.Baloan Andras 10.Marsh Tom 11.Cziuk David
Master Flat: 1.Fukumori Kenji 2.Pal Varga 3.Luttenberg Jurgen 4.Haspeklo Milan 5.Reich Marcus 6.Alexandridis Alehandro 7.Mazan Tamas 8.Akiyama Daisuke 9.Chauvel Yannick 10.Loeser Stefan 11.Grossjohan Benjamin 12.Leblond John
Pro Flat: 1.Sommer Michael 2.Gomez Jorge 3.Ryoji Yamamoto 4.Jumelin Alex 5.Penonzek Nathan 6.Morizaki Hiroya 7.Wilhelm Matt 8.Lukas Frank 9.Sauter Wolfgang 10.Kuoppa Martti 11.Uchino Yohei 12.Puente Jesse
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, june 2005: Dirt has one class at the worlds. The jumps are usually big so there's no room for experts, a special girls class or masters. When you first took a look at the jumps you noticed the 6 meter high starting stage. It was pretty nuts because the drop to the first landing was about three meters. Just compare it to the high diving board. It looks alright from the bottom but once you're up there it's a different story. The first go for everyone was quite scary but if you wanted to compete, you had to go for it. There were some scratches from the original starting list, including Jesse Puente's name, but we think that was a mistake rather than Jesse pussing out on the big drop. After the drop, three big sets followed. Some riders (Bibi, Bohan, Barrett, Sasaki, Baker) were pushing the limits to the sky on the first set. After set three a 180 degree left hand turn followed. Then it was two more sets that required some pedaling, even for the strict riders (that normally don't allow pedaling in between jumps). The weather cooperated very well. It must have been Marek's birthday present. The rain earlier that day made for perfect conditions with no dust and loamy dirt. It was decided to drop the lowest score so every rider had the chance to mess up only once. When all was said and done, Kye Forte got the gold. The Federal rider did whips, flips and 360-s both ways with a table top thrown in left and right for good measure. RedBull buddy Corey Bohan got second. He came close to pulling off one of those "newschool" front flips over the last set. In third we saw S&M's Adam Baker who, in his last run, attempted a tailwhip drop in off the 20 feet stage. He messed up but got back up to show he could do it. In the meantime Ryan Barrett had crashed hard on a cannonball on the second set and had to be taken to hospital with a scabbed face and a concussion. It's a miracle not more accidents happened on dirt, but then again, it was for pros only.
www.bmxworlds05.com: Altogether 25 riders from around the world took part, and the Czech Republic was represented by four riders. Each rider had three runs whereby only the two best counted. After being split up into three groups the finals were ready the get started. The first ride was in front of a massive crowd which assembled around the dirt. The most outstanding of the first group was Corey Bohan, who was flying incredibly high, giving away tricks such as a 360 onefoot and a barspin to a can can. He tied up his ride with a frontflip which lacked a successful landing. The atmosphere was gradually improving in quality, and the same went for the performances of the riders. Sergio Layos was attacking the five jumps with incredibly stylish 360’s, tabletops and a superman. The second group was dominated by Kye Forte from England, whose incredible series of tricks included a 360 turndown, followed by a opposite 360, finished off with a backflip turndown. This was simply something that none of the other riders could rival, and so Kye won. The crowd pumped up the final group to incredible performances. Probably the most surreal stunt was Adam Baker’s tailwhip straight away from the starter ramp. To that Adam later added a 360 tailwhip and a truckdriver x-up. From the home town dudes the most impressive was the designer of the local jumps, David Pánka, who among tough international competition managed to secure the lucky 13th position.
Pro dirt: 1.Kye Forte (England) 2.Corey Bohan (Australia) 3.Adam Baker (USA) 4.Sergio Layos (Spain) 5.Heath Pinter (USA) 6.Romuald Bibi Noirot (France) 7.Ryan Barret (USA) 8.Patrick Guimez (France) 9.Marcus Hampl (Germany) 10.Luke Fink (Australia) 11.Sasaki Taketoshi (Japan) 12.Wilson Gareth (England) 13.Panka David (CZ) 14.Forte Leo (UK) 15.Heyer Bjon (Germany) 16.Tisoni Alessandro (Italy) 17.Benes Libor (CZ) 18.Herbolzheimer Max (Germany) 19.Barbero Alessandro (Italy) 20.Vhanntolder Greg 21.Conry Lilian (France) 22.Caha Pavel (CZ) 23.Mlady Ondra (CZ) 24.Carrez Cedric (France) 25.Kompaore Laurent (France)
GIRLS
Among the fair sex the most outstanding after two rides by one minute was Cory Coffey with her no hands, barspins or transfer from the spine to the side bank.
Second place, in spite of a second run nasty fall which required treatment, was won by Hiroko Matsumura who was showing off grinds on almost all that was available.
Third place was secured by the German Monce Stellwag for her 180 into disaster, feeble grind and other tricks. The fourth and last place fell to Annica Jonsson from Sweden.
PROS FINALS
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, june 2005: The street course looked good. Some walls and ramps had been added to the covered skate park and had something to offer for most riders. Making the cut to the Pro finals was tough. Dirt World champ Kye Forte was running out of steam trying to do this big transfer but managed to pull it in the end. He still ended up in 12th. Ruben cruised around a fair bit in his own style and hit obstacles like no one else did. A pleasure to watch. 10th place was for Canadian John Heaton who pulled his big 180 transfer after multiple attempts. Tobias Wicke is so tech. He's got two brakes and 4 pegs on his bike and uses all of it a lot. Next to tech tricks Tobi goes burly too with a flip-whip over the spine. Wicke ended two runs with a broken chain, both on a tailwhip fakie attempt. Brian Kachinsky used the complete course and hit every rail on the course. Brian is a burley dude. His toothpick kink on the metal bar was insane. Osato was recovered from the run in with the man on the miniramp. He started off with a tailwhip drop-in from the top of the curved wall. Another favorite obstacle was the spine with the rail that saw some typical Osato tricks for 7th. Belgian Hannu Cools always comes up with original lines on the course. He found a couple in Praha like the fufanu on the backrail and the manual on the curved wall. Ben Hennon started off strong with 3-whip transfers from spine to landing and long whips from the quarterpipe to the same landing ramp. Ben killed a lot of time (and himself) trying to pull a flipwhip over the spine with barrier. It was nuts and he came close on his last attempt. Luke Fink, surprising Pro World Champ of the Beja world's, just missed out on the top three. Luke was riding very well though hitting everything in sight and doing different tricks on every obstacle. He had a crash on a 900 attempt on the quarterpipe but kept going. 4th was his result. Sergio had a great weekend with a third in mini and a 4th in dirt. The FlyBikes rider repeated the bronze in street with flowing style, lots of opposite stuff and a huge downside tailwhip transfer from quarterpipe into a tiny landing behind a wall. That trick was also rewarded for the Best Trick contest giving Sergio an Oakley Thumb. Alistair once again had a solid ride in the finals. Big is a word you can use a lot when you try to describe Ali's riding. Big transfers, Big wallrides, Big airs, just Big shit. The Macneil factory pilot got second right behind revelation Morgan Wade. It was Morgan's first European contest and he made it count. He will be a regular from now on because he has put himself on the map winning pro street. He rode a double rail and tailwhipped out of it and did his first ever curved wallride to tailwhip in Prague. His tailwhips are from a different league and his quarterpipe air was sweet. The Nokia BMX Freestyle Worlds had come to an end. It was a great event with a true Worlds spirit. Thanks to Marek and his crew for pulling this off on such short notice.
www.bmxworlds05.com: After an hours training of the twelve finalists, featuring names well known to us from bike videos, the pro street finals kicked off at six p.m. in front of an about-to-explode arena of spectators. The twelve riders were divided up into three heats by four.
The first heat featured the names of Tobias Wicke, Dave Osato, Kye Forte and Hanna Cools. As was expected, the rides were absolutely brutal. The gentlemen began to give off one 360 after another, often additionally combined with a tailwhip or with something even more juicy. Tobias sent off a backflip over the spine and a double tailwhip. Osato tried out a 720 over the spine and Cools began his ride with a manual on the bottom wallride, just so that later on he began to jump onto a major wallride form the bank into the manual….
The next heat was composed of Brian Kachinsky, Luke Fink, John Heaton and Ruben Alcantra. Mr. Kachinsky right in his first ride sent off a 360 over the wood plank. This was followed by Kink’s brutal nofoot can-can transfer, and a 360 over the plank finished off with a barspin. Hot stuffffff. Heaton dominated with his seriously high wallrides and Alcantra with a series between the radiuses….Luke Fink’s reply was a 540 turn, an opposite icepick, and finally a hand pant 360. Just to make sure, John Heaton did a flair over the head, and Alcantra tried out the ice-pick on a turned wallride….As a complete final, John Heaton began to attack a 180 transfer from the spine to the bank, and when he finally succeeded on his fifth attempt, he added in a smooth barspin…
Into the fifth and final heat, the dudes that stepped up were Sergio Layos, Alistair Whitton, Ben Hennon and Morgan Wade…and hell began to unleash. Leyos started off with a wallride into a brutal turndown, finished off with a 180 over the spine. Alistair was however not fully satisfied, hence transferring over the edge of the park with a 360 turn, handbelt and backflip. Morgan’s war arsenal in use included wallride to the whip and John Hennon gave a terribly long transfer whip. The stuff that these guys were doing up there took me about four sides of notes, so now only to the most important…without doubt the most brain dead award would go to Ben Hennon, who to an already exploding crowd was endlessly attempting an unbelievable flip whip over the wood plank, virtually killing himself in the process. Sergio’s response was a crazy transfer tailwhip somewhere beyond the wallride, and finally finally finally Morgan Wade gave us a terribly high fly table just below the roof, and in addition to that he began to attempt a wallride to the flair, during which the crowds were virtually ecstatic…..he was still attacking this trick about thirty more times afterwards.
Street Pro
1.Wade Morgan 2.Whitton Alistair 3.Layos Sergio 4.Fink Luke 5.Hennon Ben 6. Cools Hannu 7.Osato Dave 8.Kachinsky Brian 9.Wicke Tobias 10.Heaton John 11.Alcantara Ruben 12.Forte Kye 13.Webb Mark 14.Tsuruta Kenji 15.Wilke Marcus 16.Millar Clint 17. Garlta Heltor 18.Pascal Guerard 19.Grosic Senad 20.Wiegman Tim 21.Wilson Gareth 22.Laucque Tommy 23.Barbero Alessandro 24.Seca Pedro 25.Elkington Josh 26.Seaton Sprat 27.Barret Ryan 28.Aller Phil 29.Keep Sebastian 30.Azeuedo Daniel 31.Talyor Jon 32.Hankowetz Benno 33.Etzold Atze 34.Beran Michal 35.Mahoney Chris 36.Bommel Bjorn 37.Schiefer Ralph 38.Jan Bekurtz 39.Serra Daniel 40.Wallace Ben 41.Mihelich Taj 42.Yaester Mitch 43.Armstrong Ben 44.Felekis Jorgos 45.Stricker Josh 46.Shelter Doe 47.Carson Sandy 48.Funk Jurgen 49.Gaertig Max 50.Forte Leo 51.Marselle Pete 52.Noirot Romuald 53.Rich Joe 54.Stevens Craig 55.Lilien Conry 56.Guerdner Kevin 57.Holroid Mark 58.Kompaore Laurent 59.Manuel Ben 60.Funk Jurgen 61.Serra Daniel
Street Expert: 1.Josa Daniel 2.Ivciaf Baluazs 3.Van Belle Jimmy 4.Hoffman Bruno 5.Reed Andy 6.Gallegher Levi 7.Kamper Holitz 8.Kneubuhler Lucas 9.Papousek Petr 10.Voytov Pasha 11.Neumann Ingvar 12.Beisel Benjamin
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, june 2005: The miniramp contest at the World's have always been a highlight. This year it wasn't any different. The pro finals took place at night and with enough lights, music and a big crowd, the 12 finalists stepped onto the Braun miniramp. The ramp set-up was a spine mini with a sub box on one side. In warm-up Dave Osato jumped a spine and ran into a spectator who happened to walk on the ramp. It forced Dave to sit out the finals which was a real shame because we all know what Dave is capable of. Ben Hennon sat out the finals too and saved himself for the street finals on Sunday. Juan Ruiz jumped in and rode his heart out and whipped and flaired to 10th place beating Aussie Clint Millar who pulled a sweet Canadian nosepick on the subbox. Hector Garcia from Mexico is one hell of a rider. He 3-whipped the 2 meter high spine and had loads of variations on both sides. John Heaton's highlight was the flair to axle stall on the subbox and overall smooth riding style. Kenji Tsuruta from Japan rode the ramp with grace going both ways and airing super high. He also nosebonked the subbox to manual. The contest was run in a jam format withy 4 riders in each group. Luke Fink could have easily taken up half the time of group 2 as his bag of tricks seems to be bigger than anyone else's. The Aussie went balls out and got 6th for his effort. Alistair Whitton aired the hell out of the spine with huge no-handers and no-foot cancans. Ali adapts to every ramp in a second and that requires skills. Stoked to get 4th was Mark Webb. Riding with a busted knee, the Englishman got loose and 540-d, flaired, 360-d all over the place. He put loads of tricks in every run and became a crowd favorite with his loose canon style, going for it again and again. Top three: Sergio Layos rode well and seemed to have a good time on the ramp. He pulled all his tricks and added a lot of opposite stuff to his tricklist. 3rd for the Spaniard. Morgan Wade had the crowd support. No wonder when you do 9 feet airs out of a 7 foot mini. The crowd wanted to see one more trick at the end of his run but after killing his own bike and then two borrowed bikes, the Mutiny rider stepped on yet another strange bike. But then he took off the glove, made his hand sweaty by running it through his hair and dropped in from the subbox heading for the spine. The spectators went wild but Morgan couldn't pull it off. Surprise of the mini comp was Koji Kraft. I'd never even seen him ride mini before but he went for it Koji-style with the throttle full open at all times.
Dave Freimuth put it this way: "The miniramp contest was the best vert contest of the Worlds." With all the riders going so high he was spot on.
Mini Expert
1 Papousek Petr
2 Reed John
3 Jaeger Joachim
4 Ellis Stuart
5 Fendrych Pavel
6 Terence Colin
7 Neumann Ingvar
8 Thomas Florian
9 Fedoroko Michal
10 Voytov Pasha
11 Adam Rafael
12 Van Belle Timmy
Mini Master
1 Miller Mike
2 Olsson Jocke
3 Tominaga Yuta
4 Oda Taku
5 Raus Jiri
6 Jansson Jacob
7 Heikurinen Arto
8 Boucher Hugues
9 Limonta Fabio
10 Stacey Rob
11 Ellis Stuart
12 Smith Tom
13 Grant Berry
14 Smith Mason
Mini Pro: 1.Kraft Auron Koji 2.Wade Morgan 3.Layos Sergio 4.Webb Mark 5.Whitton Alistair 6.Fink Luke 7.Tsuruta Kenji 8.Heaton John 9.Garcia Hektor 10.Ruiz Juan 11.Clint Millar 12.Osato Dave 13.Hennon Ben (England) 14.Ben Wallace (UK) 15.Pascal Guerard (France) 16.Miron Jay (CAN) 17.Seca Pedro (Portugal) 18.Stevens Craig (UK) 19.Kachinsky Brian (USA) 20.Wilson Gareth (England) 21.Mihelich Taj (USA) 22.Ben Manual (UK) 23.Keep Sebastian (UK) 24.Hankowetz Benno (Austria) 25.Pill Anthony (UK) 26.Mahoney Chris (UK) 27.Marselle Pete (England) 28.Standford Roland (GER)
Morgan Wade on the cover of Soul BMX video 28. Photo: Kay Clauberg.
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, june 2005: The vert contest at the worlds could have/should have been a banger. The halfpipe was set up in a big tennis stadium with seats for over 5000 people. The contest was planned for Saturday night and with a bunch of Pivo's down the throat, the crowd could have made this event one not to forget. It turned out different though. First of all the number of Pro riders present wasn't great. The USA (-based) riders stayed home for several reasons (excuses) which is a real shame because these were the IBMXFF world championships and that title is one that would look good on any vert rider's CV. Second and main problem was the lighting. The 4 lights that were put up did not produce more than a good Maclite. This meant that the contest needed to be rushed before darkness set in. The contest was finished before the announced time it would start.
No qualifying was necessary with 11 riders entering pro vert. Peter Geys and Jan Valenta were injured and took over some judging duties. They saw Pete Marselle bust his ass but having fun. If Luke Fink could go a couple of feet higher he'll be in the mix with the vert posse. He's got plenty of lip tricks wired including fufanus on vert. Better watch out for the Aussie. With the best run counting of the three runs everyone rode, it was task to get at least one good run in. Aze struggled a bit on the manual but showed he's got the whip, flair and 540 wired. Aze is one of the younger riders on the vert ramp so he's got a future ahead of him, Olympics or not. Jon Taylor was going super high for 8th and Shaun Eglington finished on 7th. It's a close field in this section of the results. Tim Eichert 540-d to 6th and Benny Kopp was looking good now that he has a local vert ramp to ride. Veteran Zach Shaw let go a few flairs and a 540 for 4th. Top three was rather tight with every rider having his own style and tricks. Koji is non-stop and although recovering from a knee injury, he rocked da house with his x-up whips, switch hander variations, lookbacks and 540-s. Koji ended up getting bronze and a check big enough to cover all his expenses. Thanks for coming over Koji. The Spanish Fly impressed with his huge airs and was very close to a win. Eduardo even stayed on the bike most of the time and walked off the ramp injury free. He was stoked with second. First went to the UK. Simon Tabron loves the worlds and made sure he got there long enough to wrap up another vert title. With people finding excuses not to come over, Simon could have done the same. He was in the USA the weekend before the Worlds and took off for the so important Dew ASTour in Denver the weekend after the contest in Prague. Simon's experience lead him through a very solid first run. Bike problems had him change rides afterwards but it was already in the pocket. By the time the last guy got off the ramp it was dark in the tennis stadium. Time for some Pivo's.
Pro vert: 1.Simon Tabron 2.Eduardo Terreros 3.Koji Kraft 4.Zach Shaw 5.Benny Kopp 6.Tim Eichert 7.Shaun Eglington 8.Jon Taylor 9.Aze Etzold 10.Luke Fink 11.Pete Marselle