Here is a guest post from my friend David from Germany. He flew to the US to take part in the competition and did very well! In this blog post, he tells us about his experience with Team Germany (my friends Lisa, Philipp and Anna are with him together with a couple other guys). If you understand German, you can follow their adventures on "The wheel rocking world of Lisa and David". Thanks David for sharing your post with me!
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| Team Germany Ph. Anna Spindelndreier |
The World Championship in
Dallas is over and it was such a great weekend. I really can't thank
the organizers from Rise Adaptive sports enough. After winning an
international contest last year in Venice Beach, I was already being
called a world champion. But in fact this was the first official
world championship: a hard-earned name, with 18 riders from 8
countries.
On Saturday, during the
qualifiers, I was very nervous, but apparently my run was very
satisfying not only for me, but also for the jury, that rewarded it
with the 2nd place. The first 12 qualified for the final:
alongside me there were Aaron Fotheringham, Blake Simpson, Katherine
Beattie, Rico Reyes, Toni Quinoero Martin, Jake Harvey, Shaun Doss,
Quinn Waitley, Pedro Henrique, Christiaan Bailey and Philipp Cierpka.
We have made a little
edit of the runs of team Germany (Lisa, Philipp, Paul and I):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ucqmrdwab71fhh6/wcmx-wm_fb.avi
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| The kids of Team Box with Aaron Wheelz |
On Sunday it was
make-or-break. The scores from the qualifiers were invalid, only the
two runs from Sunday determined the final ranking. Still, I was
clearly not as nervous as I was on Saturday. It was different for
Philipp. He was very nervous and worried he could break his wheel,
which he had bent on Saturday, during his good qualification run.
Even in his final runs, his excitement was noticeable, but he handled
it very well and can now consider himself one of the 12 best WCMX
riders in the world.
Though for Paul and Lisa
the competition was over after the qualifiers, Lisa
barely missed the finals with a 13th place and
Paul, after a long mandatory break and with an unfamiliar wheelchair
(he got my old TNS with last-minute emergency adjustments) has done
well and gained the 15th place.
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David can fly.
Ph. Anna Spindelndreier
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So it was Philipp and I
in the finals. Philipp was the first one to ride on Sunday,
unfortunately he was so nervous he crashed several times: nothing
bad, but points are taken away after each fall.
Besides crashes,
creativity, style, use of skatepark (that is if you are using
everything or just rolling in circles), tricks and lines or combos
(the way you connect the different tricks and gaps in the skatepark)
are evaluated. Once again, I decided to use my safe repertoire and
preferably try not to fall and to make my tricks look as easy as
possible, which I did. I was very happy with my runs and I managed to
use everything, without crashing in the valid runs and with
everything I could do at Alliance skatepark. Without crashing? Well,
not really: during the very last trick of the very last run, I still
managed to lay on the ground. I have tried to come down the handrail
with a 50-50 and fell on my back. Anyway, I only did that because the
first run was perfect and I thought: “If I make it, then it's good,
but it's not a problem if I don't.” Only the best run was valid.
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| Aaron's handi-plant |
Aaron crashed a few
times, but compensated for
them with his powerful tricks and managed to take home the title.
Blake Simpson, the one I was betting on, who also was 1st
in the qualifiers, unfortunately didn't have luck on Sunday and
placed 6th
. The 2nd
place, that went to Pedro Henrique from Brasil, was not surprising
but well deserved. Until then, I only knew his breathtaking backflips
out of the quarter, which he also showed his ability at during the
weekend. He landed all of them except one, putting pressure on
everyone. Even Aaron wasn't able to land backflips at such rate.
However, in such a contest, a single backflip is not enough to obtain
a good place. Pedro proved that he can do other things besides using
the jumpramp. His grinds, together with his fakie firecracker down
the stairs, were crucial for the ranking.
I
followed in the 3rd
place: thereby the jury rewarded my clean runs and my use of the
entire skatepark, as well as the fact that I always used each and
every second of my 2 minutes.
A video of Philipp's run, as well as
mine, will follow; here are the general highlights:
With
750 $
prize money and a bunch of new impressions and friends, the adventure
continues. Because, as I am writing this text, I am already in
Austin, very comfy at the breakfast table. What we experience here,
you will find out soon.
Greetings from Austin, Texas from Lisa, Anna
and David
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| The winners: 1. Aaron Fotheringham 2. Pedro Henrique 3. David Lebuser 4. Rico Reyes 5. Jake Harvey Ph. Anna Spindelndreier |
COOOOOOOL!!!!!!!
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