World Freestyle Championships

Today was the day of the world freestyle championships. Riders had travelled from around Angland, Japan, USA, Ireland, Czech republic, Syberia, France, Belgium, Switzerland and myself from Australia.

It wasnt just the rider which made this a true world class event, but the Track features were like no other i had ridden before. The main riding line consisted of a 25ft long snowboard style stepdown, after landing this travelling at mach 10, a quick speed check was required and it was on to the 30ft tabletop with a very steep lip. After riding out of this it was required to get down low and hold as much speed as possible before the next jump, a 40ft long step up jump where the landing was around 8ft higher then the 6ft high take off. Aswell as these features, there were rails, hips and a beasty 12ft drop off.

This set the platform to be the best competition of all time. Many of the expected 1500 spectators began to arrive at 1:00 in the afternoon ready to watch qualifications at 4pm followed by finals under lights at 9pm

By the time of the first qualification run, riders were all at the top and amped to ride. Many riders chose to try and throw down straight away, while others like myself were more conservative to make sure to get clean runs early on in the comp.

Unfortunately after the first 2 qual. runs the rain had arrived, so out came the covers for the jumps(just like in the cricket or tennis).

After and hour under covor, the rain had stopped and it was time for the 3rd and final qualification run. Towards the end of the 60 competitors the rain had joined us again. This time the rain was heavier, and didnt end for several hours forcing the organisers to take results from the qualification jumps.

In the end it was Renny Miles who places first, Pavel Pasha from syberia in 2nd and ben tweedie in 3rd. I ended up placing 11th which i was stoaked on. Riders were then able to relax and enjoy the free jagermeister(one of the event sponsors)