Something which has simply been unimaginable just recently – to have an Indoor World Championship happening on a relatively small area AND finding more than a handful of riders capable of performing on limited space – has become no problem these days as the evolution of the top riders in matters of technical capabilities is sky-rocketing: 16 top riders from the US and all parts of Europe did not have a problem at all in performing on no more than 54 by 15 meters (or: 162 by 45 feet).
On this very limited amount of space, the guys kept circling and throwing trick combinations like hardly ever seen before. Thousands of spectators were attending the two-days-contest (which has been happening within the Swiss-Moto tradeshow) and were witnessing Indoor Streetbike-Freestyle on next level. Tricks considered as almost impossible a short time ago have become standard for many of the top-athletes in an instant.
The contest got underway already with two runs by 4 minutes each on Saturday, out of which the better one counted for the result. Already at the first one, I have managed to score 49 out of the 50 points and take the lead. I could take it easy in the second of Saturday’s heats, focussing on the crowd rather than on the judges and I still made a 47 points score, which felt just great for my confidence …
Today, Sunday, two more rounds were scheduled, but this time, both those scores – together with the “best of” one from yesterday - would be counting for the title. So you better don’t make any mistake. In the first run, I managed to go big again with 48 points and the tension whether I’d make it through the final run kept rising.
By then, I have won every single heat and the gap towards AC Farias on 2nd place has been up to 10 points, however, recently, something unexpected has always been happening in the last runs of contests, so I remained pretty uneasy. Apart from a lose lever during warm-up nothing has happened, fortunately, and even though I somehow have lost the flow in my last run (some nervousness?), I could make 47 points more and also win heat four out of four.
Even though routine seemed to win again (through myself and AC Farias on spots one and two), Zurich has seen some great examples of young blood innovating our sport Streetbike Freestyle. Young Guns Europa, such as Matti Tepsa, Michael „Miguh“ Hilska, Johnnie Do or Joni Tammela as well as all the young Americans showed very progressive riding.
Lifting our sport onto such a new, demanding (indoor-) platform has happened at the right time, and I am even more happy, having been able to win this first ever edition. “Progression” is my middle name ;-)