Date: july 17-20, 1997.
Organisation: IFN (International Freestyle Network), Paul de Jong (Paul's Boutique), Bart de Jong (team manager GT Europe), and Fat Jam fame.
Sponsors: 55DSL, MTV, Schauff, Puma.
... pas bien ... Impossible d'amener à manger ou boire sur le site où tout est payant (toilettes comprises). Interdiction de camper sur place. Certains riders comme Albert Retey et Leo Dumlao étant arrivés après les inscriptions ne pourront pas participer. Concerts hardcore tous les soirs. 12000 francs de prize money au premier puis rien du tout pour le 5ème et les suivants. De nombreux vélos ont été volés.
... bien ... Beaucoup de riders présents: Pays nordiques, Grèce, USA, Canada, ... Practice libre (inscrits ou non)
Mark Noble, Ride BMX UK october 1997: The contest site itself was a large ice skating complex, with a huge indoor ice-hockey arena, an indoor smaller skating arena, and an outside speed-skating track about the size of an athletics stadium without the seats. Of course, this being summer, there was no ice to be seen: the large hockey arena was the venue for flatland, the other smaller arena was where the spine ramp was built, and the outside track arena was a mix of vert ramp, jumping contest equipment, sound stages, tents for bike shops and clothing companies, a specially built 55DSL 40x20m swimming pool, a trampoline, a 200m long bar, food tent, and more. In all, the facility could host thousands of people - and it looked like they were expecting it. The flatland area was made from silky smooth concrete -some riders complained that it was just a bit too slick, but for the most part it got the thumbs up. The vert ramp sported a ten foot [or thereabouts - it was made with metric dimensions] transition with about four inches of vert -at least that what it felt like. The vert ramp definitely didn't have enough vert - another foot would have been perfect - but it didn't affect the riding too much. The jumping contest was dubbed the 'dirt landing' contest by Ira, because while the landing was a big pile of dirt, the take-off was a wooden six foot tall transition ramp. Not a true 'dirt jumping' event for the dirt purists, but it was still going to be a jumping contest nontheless. Now lets talk about the 'mini' ramp: this sucker was nine foot tall. It also had a two-coping spine with a 1 ft deep 12ft wide volcano. And it was practically vert. This burly ramp - even Dave Osato reckoned it was really burly - was a bit restricting [read: 'offputting'] for most age groups, but pro spine was definitely going to go off and sort the men from the boys. The whole event was split into age groups, as opposed to the now standard C, B and A groups. Groups were under 15, 16-17, 18-19, 20+, Masterclass, and Pro. The only riding without groups was the dirt landing contest, which only had one fat group with everyone in [mostly pros].
Venu tout droit de Finlande et pratiquement inconnu, Martti Kuoppa a mis tout le monde d'accord avec des enchaînements aussi variés que difficiles, le tout sur la musique d'ABBA.
Mark Noble, Ride BMX UK october 1997: The contest started in force on the Thursday, with early qualifications - the main highlight being pro flatland taking place in the evening. Pro entrants numbered 19 pro flatland riders, all of whom racked up enough experience, tricks, and style to easily qualify as a World class professional rider. Standouts included Jason Brown and Andrew Faris from Canada, Martti Kuoppa from Finland, and our own hot tips, Phil Dolan and Effraim Catlow. After 19 mindblowing runs, top four was Faris, Brown, Kuoppa, and Catlow. Phil was down in sixth, but still looked strong and went on to the semi-finals along with 15 riders. The 16 riders in the semi rode again, to cut down to eight topscoring riders who made up the pro flatland final. I'll admit it, times have changed since I took the 1988 World 17+ Championship Title and tricks now have progressed beyond belief, so I asked a pro to write the story for me: thank Effraim Catlow for preventing you lot from reading a story filled with blagging nonsense: thank goodness the flatland sidebar is elsewhere in this story, because being one of the main highlights of the whole week, the flatland contest deserves proper respect and in-depth reporting.
Effraim Catlow, Ride BMX UK october 1997: This year's Worlds was all about Pro Flat, without a doubt this was the highlight of the contest. The flatland area ruled, smooth as you like, plus we had a practice area too. The standard of riding was unbelievable, it is now apparent that is the expert classes from 15 expert upwards everyone needs longer runs, one and a half minutes doesn't cut t anymore. A good example of this was the spinning madman, Frank Lukas pulling some of the fastest spinning cabooses on the pedal I've ever seen, rad stubble duck caboose switched to junkyard, consistent tricks, you'll be hearing more from him in the future. Simon Stojko Falk had tough competition from Mike Sommer from Austria, but eventually won with one-touch run, jamming to the sounds of EPMD, with his smooth low-bro style, Sommer was ripping also with some nice 360 barspin karl kruzers.
Masters and pro was tough as it is every year, we had to qualify twice to be in the final, the first qualifier broke it down to 16 riders, the second 'semi' to eight then the final. Big shout out to GT's James Needham who got fifth in Masters using his British Knight shoes to full effect with some nice blender on the pedal switches and gerators on the seattube. Sheffield represent. Riding with no chain or chainring, Jimmy Petitet from the BMXicos posse was ripping, rad gerator body varials, second place. Decade master Peter Szabolcsi from Hungary won the masters with that Marton style, fast snappy tricks. He has his brakes opposite than normal, front brake on the right, making his front wheel switches look completely weird. After ripping in the first two opening qualifiers, Maik Dettmer touched more than he would have liked ending in third place.
The first pro qualifiers was the best contest I've ever been involved in, all 17 riders were going for it, and as every year some really good riders just missed the cut: after qualifying in fourth with a one touch run, and pulling a super long front wheel link in the second qualifier I jelled out in the second half of the run and didn't pull anything. Alex Jumelin also missed the final cut after ripping into the first top eight, Alex has been in the States this year with Lionel Cardoso, and it showed. He also rode with no chainring or chain, and is gonna use a front wheel on the back so he can ride faster... man, those French guys are crazy. Respect.
Ali was getting close to a super-hard link in practice, halfpacker turbines to cross foot hitchiker to backwards backpacker jumped round to hitchiker. I heard he pulled it once: sink. Ulrich Kittel deserves some big respect, this guy was jamming with some of the hardest rolling tricks going, halfpacker turbine to backwards backpacker pulled, the Berlin guys were in the house. The atmosphere was buzzing after the pro qualifiers, everyone was well stoked on it and there was more to come.
The pro finals were tough, right down to eight everyone was going off. KHE's OG Marton touched more than he would have liked, but had the hard moves like forward rope a roni to two footed backyard flipped into barspin megaspins to perverted, nice. Alexis Desolneux had some jamming front wheel stuff, like squeaker barflips scuffing back and forth between each barspin, barspin karl kruzer with no brake, in practice he did a nice cross-footed halfpacker to hitchiker. GT's Lionel Cardono ended up with sixth place; riding to the Wu, Lionel had some really technical front wheel switches all of which are hard to remember. I do however remember his final link pulled clean as you like -two footed dump truck [passed round his back] to upside-down megaspin to spinning gerator. As Paul Roberts said "Yeah France!"
Ripping to the sound of LL Cool J, the king of the stubble duck tricks, Michael Steingraber ripped with his mad style, getting the crowd going with his showmanship. He had some mad links too, I love that blender to body-varial to karl kruzer, Steingraber was well up for it, a well deserved fifth.
Phil Dolan saved his best riding for the final. Riding to the jungle sound, Phil hit switch foot dump trunk turbine to opposite side upside-down wheelie to a rope-a-roni to backwards wheelie to decade. I liked his inside leg circle-k where he scuffed the tyre back and forth. And that's where he finished fourth.
The highlight of the flat was the riding of Andrew Faris [Basic], Jason Brown [GT USA], and Martti Kuoppa [GT Finland], These three dominated the pro class from start to finish. Martti won the first qualifier with what I think was a no-touch run, dude, you' have to see the contest on video to remember all the switches and details and even then you'll probably be confused: 360 barspin karl kruzer to fire hydrant whips straight into cross foot hitchiker, no-handed spinning caboose on the pedal, cross-foot hitchiker to switch foot karl krazer to turbine to hitchiker, a link that leasted at least one and a half minutes. In practice he pulled the sickest link that lasted an easy five to six minutes. Jason Brown captured this on video, so look out for it on a future Props. Martti ended up with a hard-earned third place [nice Abba tune he rode to].
Canada's Jason Brown rode fast and furious the whole time during the Worlds, super consistent and snapping into each link or trick are the trademarks of his riding, during his final run he touched only once on a one-handed smith decade, most of his run was taken up with just about every pinky-squeak variation that you can think of, he ended one link with a fire hydrant to decade, landing in backwards wheelie to perverted landing directly on the pedals, that's a real hard move and he pulled it like t was nothing. My personal favourite from him was that double cross-foot whiplash to inside leg cross-foot anti-clockwise cowboy squeaks, second place for Jason.
Right get your anoraks on for some serious flatland wizardry to get your mouth watered. Riding his new prototype signature Basic frame, Andrew Faris fresh from a third Place finish at the X-Games, ripped to a World Championship winning run, complete with his Walkman that never left his side. Faris hit almost everything with that slow controlled style that we have all come to love, with a mere one slight touch towards the end. Trick lists may be 'boring' to some people but as he won I'll write it anyway as I know some flatlanders will get stoked on it. Here goes: switch foot gerator to switch foot caboose starting easy making sure he pulls it, then the hard shit starts 360 barspin steamboat to backwards hitchiker to backwards switchiker barflips straight to pedals; hang five to straight bar, switch-handed steamroller to opposite side blender back into straight bar switch handed steamroller to candy bar mc circle to crossfoot frontyard to pedals: fire hydrant to cross-foot blender to cross-foot cowboy squeak to cross-foot elephant glide to tomahawk to frontyard to squeaker to tailwhip to backwards switchiker barflipped to hitchiker if you are following all this, 'nuff respect - switch-foot dump truck to two footed no handed forward death truck, regular steamroller to cross foot straight bar steamroller flipped to halfpacker to cross foot elephant glide, to switch foot blender to pedals; backwards switchhiker body varial to halfpacker [sick!]. Faris rules, he touched just three times in three runs BIG respect to him.
At this point, I'd like to mention that Paul Roberts did a great job in hyping up the crowd during flat which made a great atmosphere, even if he did keep calling pinky squeaks 'whiplashes'. Thanks to Paul De Jong for one of the best flatland contests l've ever been to. Flatland represented in a BIG way.
Andrew Faris: I pulled all my tricks that I wanted to do! I didn't weasel on my run, you know, I didn't say "ah I'll just do something easy", but I pulled all my stuff, and that's what I was hoping for, and it worked out.
PRO FLAT RESULTS: 1.Andrew Faris 2.Jason Brown 3.Martti Kuoppa 4.Phil Dolan 5.Michael Steingraber 6.Lionel Cardoso 7.Alexis Desolneux
Masterclass: 1.Peter Szabolesi 2.Jimmy Petitet 3.Mark Dettmer 4.Carlos Leal 5.James Needham
20+: 1.Simon Stojko Falk 2.Michael Sommer 3.Christopher Eggert 4.Andreas Linquist 5.Mario Gruber
18-19: 1.Luis Martinez Codes 2.Phillip Fruh 3.Csaba Bozse 4.Gabor Pasztor 5.Ismael Bambouver
16-17: 1.Frank Lukas 2.Thomas Ebeling 3.Vid Prilateji 4.Jan Schmidt 5.Andreas Tschulk
Under 15: 1.Auila Sarlosi 2.Stefan Trinks 3.Madgid Kadi 4.Gaylord Hesse
Martti Kuoppa. Photo by Mark Noble.
tonestojko, www.youtube.com, april 2008: Simon Stojko Falk-BMX world champion flatland expert 20+.The Netherlands BMX freestyle worlds 1997, Eindhoven. Camera: Tone Stojko & Max Osole; director: Tone Stojko.
tonestojko, www.youtube.com, april 2008: Matti Kuoppa-3rd place flatland, BMX freesstyle Worlds. The Netherlands BMX freestyle worlds 1997, Eindhoven. Camera: Tone Stojko & Simon Stojko Falk; director: Simon Stojko Falk.
tonestojko, www.youtube.com, april 2008: Jason Brown-2nd place flatlad pro BMX Worlds. The Netherlands BMX freestyle worlds 1997, Eindhoven. Camera: Tone Stojko & Simon Stojko Falk; director: Simon Stojko Falk.
tonestojko, www.youtube.com, april 2008: Andrew Farris-BMX freestyle world champion flatland pro.The Netherlands BMX freestyle worlds 1997, Eindhoven. Camera: Tone Stojko & Simon Stojko Falk; director: Simon Stojko Falk.
La météo execrable a semé la zizanie. Pour la finale pro, ce sont les runs des qualifications qui ont servi à établir le classement final.
Jamie Bestwick no foot cancan extérieur one hand, rocket x-up one hand, toothpick tailwhip et 540° invert à 6 pieds.
Dave Osato toothpick bus, downside toothpick, tailwhip to superman seat grab.
Mark Noble, Ride BMX UK october 1997: Masterclass vert wasn't big enough to run qualifiers, and technically speaking, with only eight riders it wasn't even big enough to necessitate running semi finals, but they still ran them: Mike Mullen entered masters, and on his second run he crashed badly on an indian, sending him to the floor connecting shoulder to flat bottom resulting in a broken collarbone. Mike will be out for six to nine weeks and will have to miss out on over a grand's worth of riding shows. And all this because the riders had to compete in a semi-final round they didn't even need to run.
The final day, Sunday 20th, was to be the climax of the entire week and during the afternoon, vert happened. Well, most of it at least, Again, like every other day, the clouds threatened and dark skies loomed in from the horizon. With foresight, 20+ class was held with just one run instead of the normal two: at the end of that all-for-one single run, Timo Jacobs, Kai Zimmer, Frederic Horrlander and Jason Keen finished in that order -this class was basically all Jason's: No foot one handers, the slowest barspins in history, 540's, deck tricks, supermans, seatgrabs, and plain old flatties. Well done to the
PRO VERT RESULTS: 1.Jamie Bestwick 2.Dave Osato 3.Simon Tabron 4.Jerry Galley 5.Achim Kujawski
Masterclass: 1.Mark Cornick 2.Sven Fanghanel 3.Lars Gforer 4.Tim Eichert 5.Ronnie Johnson
20+: 1.Jason Keen 2.Fredéric Horrlander 3.Kai Zimmer 4.Timo Jacobs
18-19: 1.Benjamin Kopp 2.Christophe Tubor 3.Romuald Noirot 4.Benjamin Shenker 5.Dirk Neubauer
16-17: 1.Sebastian Mater 2.Mike Buse 3.Rene Jansen 4.Bastian Heymann 5.Falke Birner
under 15: 1.James Harrison 2.Jasper Okunorobo
Dave Osato. Photo by Mark Noble.
tonestojko, www.youtube.com, april 2008: Jamie Bestwick-BMX world champion halfpipe pro.The Netherlands BMX freestyle worlds 1997, Eindhoven. Camera: Tone Stojko & Simon Stojko Falk; director: Simon Stojko Falk.
www.dailymotion.com/benbmx.
Une seule catégorie.
Ryan barspinner Brennan inverts one hand, double bus, close 360 tailwhip attempts.
Ruben Alcantara n'est pas loin de rentrer double tailwhips et 360 tailwhip. Il termine deuxième.
Dave Osato rentre superman to tailwhip, no foot cancan to superman avec la jambe qui fait le tour de la selle, superman seat grab x-up, ... Dommage qu'un Truckdriver ait eu raison de son genou.
Stephan Prantl rentre le plus gros flip du contest mais rate ses autres sauts.
Le grec Seve Kaylas tente 720°, truckdriver et double tailwhip.
Mark Noble, Ride BMX UK october 1997: Saturday night was one of the main highlights, with the are and on y round of the jumping contest taking pace. The fly-off was moved back to make the jump good and large [thanks to the Sheep Hills Locals] and around thirty riders signed up for the do or die, go big or go home, jumping contest. All riders took three jumps, then the riders were cut to eight highest-scoring riders, who took three more jumps in the 'final', Predictably enough, the final eight were completely going off. Stefan Prantl was pulling the hugest and smoothest flips, Dave Osato pulled a superman seatgrab with both hands on the seat, plus a no foot step-thru to superman, whilst the Backyard Jam winner Ryan Brennan took another victory in Holland with the fattest jumps and style known to man. The Barspinner was indeed spilling the skills all over the jump and was on fire. No-one was gonna be in the way of Barspinner Ryan and first place in the World Championship of Jumping.
DIRT RESULTS: 1.Ryan Brennan 2.Ruben Alcantara 3.Dave Osato 4.Stephan Prantl 5.Seve Kaylas 6.Shaun Butler
Stefan Prantl. Photo by Mark Noble.
tonestojko, www.youtube.com, april 2008: King of Dirt: Ryan Brennen (1), Ruben Alcantara (2) Dave Osato (3). The Netherlands BMX freestyle worlds 1997, Eindhoven. Camera: Tone Stojko & Simon Stojko Falk; director: Simon Stojko Falk.
www.dailymotion.com/benbmx.
Dave Osato s'étant retourné le genou en dirt la veille, il n'a pas pu participer à la finale de mini. Mais quelle claque en qualif le vendredi: aérial à 3m, 540° nosepick, 360° icepick over the spine, double busdriver, 360° spine à 2m, ...
Mark Noble, Ride BMX UK october 1997: In practice, and in the heats, Dave Osato looked unstoppable in the Pro class. He was all over the ramp, and going extra large: with stuff like 360's about six feet over the spine and travelling from one side of the ramp to the other [about 12ft of sideways drift], Mr.Osato could have just picked up the 1 st place trophy there and then and no-one would have complained. However, Dave tweaked his ankle in the dirt landing contest and was unable to ride the spine on the following Sunday during the finals. So it was left to the Europeans to show who's boss. Although, having said that, Basic Bikes flew over Jason Enns from Canada, and he was awesome. Going big, he got fourth, but top three were all incredible: Sven Fanghanel [nose wheelies, icepicks on the subbox, fufanus on the subbox, decade air attempts, tailwhip air, double barspin over the spine and a double barspin air] got 210 points, Ruben Alcantara [big airs, burly lip tricks much the same as Sven, and came close to pulling a double tailwhip jump over the spine!] won 211 points, and the winner was Alex Bender with just one point more - it was close. Alex stuck every trick and nailed the big ones - trucks over the spine, barspins, smooth airs, and lines all gave the pro title to Dragonfly's top mini ramp rider from Germany.
Ruben Alcantara, bmx.transworld.net, january 2009: The craziest trick i witnessed firsthand was the first time that I saw Dave Osato ride… It was in 1997. It was at the Worlds in Holland. I think it was a mistake, but they made the mini ramp wrong for the event because it was eight feet tall with an eight-foot tranny with the respective spine. So imagine, it was huge! And more back then, just to go over the spine was a scary mission, and everyone was straggling. But then Mr. Dave Osato showed up and rode it like you can’t imagine. Still to this day I don’t think that anyone could ride that ramp like he did. He did everything on it super high like he was riding vert. And in one of his biggest carving airs he got a good pump and did this titanic 360 over the spine that I still can’t believe that he pulled…just so hard to put it into words.
PRO SPINE RESULTS: 1.Alex Bender 2.Ruben Alcantara 3.Fanghanel Svens 4.Jason Enns 5.Achim Kujawski
Masterclass: 1.Gabriel Villada 2.David Quesada 3.Daniel Jung 4.Jonas Walmberg 5.Fred Vraneken
20+: 1.Jimmy Norstrom 2.Andreas Lemm 3.Frédéric Danion 4.Timo Jacobs 5.Jay Hotton
18-19: 1.Benjamin Shenker 2.Stefan Freier 3.James Moon 4.Michael Schmeisser 5.Senad Grosic
16-17: 1.Mark Konig 2.Zoitan Komazomy 3.Daniel Johansson 4.Viktor Bako 5.Marcel Trainik
Under 15: 1.Benno Hankowetz 2.Michael Malmberg 3.Jasper Okonurubo 4.Alexander Vnuk 5.James Harrison
Alex Bender tailwhip nosepick. Photo by Mark Noble.
tonestojko, www.youtube.com, april 2008: Alex Bender-BMX world champion miniramp pro. The Netherlands BMX freestyle worlds 1997, Eindhoven. Camera: Tone Stojko & Simon Stojko Falk; director: Simon Stojko Falk.