FRESH WIND AND NEW FACES
There are not a thousand solutions to beat the heat wave which still blushes the shoulders of FISE today. You can use water; it was done to clean the flat surface that serves as a stage for the extraordinary BMX flat riders. We can also look for this little wind coming from the sea. The air conditioning was started beforehand by the women final won by Julia Preuss. Then it was a real squall from Japan that froze all local hopes of seeing Matthias Dandois (6th) achieve the miracle of winning a new FISE despite a sore foot. The Frenchman is not having a great day and a few errors penalize some of his best sequences. Same disappointment for Viki Gomez (8th) and his titanium bike of only 7 kilos. Too bad also for the Thailand rider “Toon” who is a treat to see riding but who does not land the very end of a sequence of more than one minute.
This lack of finish is obviously detrimental in a final of a very very high level. Not even a fiery Terry Adams can thwart the Japanese surge. He puts down his famous pedaling time machine to Katrina (in tribute to the inhabitants of his city of New Orleans) and gives the most intense look at the end to show to the crowd that he is in the zone. Once the 3 minutes have elapsed from this perfect run, he can resume his European family adventure, he finishes 5th behind Masato Ito and his famous rear brake. This rarity nowadays contributes to his unique style. His Decade are certainly easier, but he apologizes for this by making them with amplitude. In addition, he offers us a very complicated last sequence that he lands perfectly on the pedals. Before him Yu Shoji had landed a fabulous run. He takes two minutes to warm up, taking his time to properly complete sequences that are less risky but which he masters wonderfully, switching between the front wheel and the rear wheel. And then, it was the blow of the mistral, the local wind, the will smith slap, a minute where he lands banger after banger in a flowing and modern style which had already seduced during qualifications. First with 91.83 pts at this stage, he sees his mentor Moto Sasaki accompany him in this whirlwind. The bronze medalist of the last Xgames in Tokyo has some combo that score a lot of points for their originality and their risk-taking. His pause with one foot on the pedal and one foot on the handlebar is just unlikely, a gift for The Agency photographers covering this FISE. Despite four lines landed without fail, he could not do better than 90 pts and finished third. So only Kio Hayakawa is left to win the title...
The young rider freshly welcomed in the big Redbull team, winner of the Nora Cup for Flat rider of the year, winner of all the major recent competitions continues to grab everything that comes his way. The announced tornado therefore does not shake and takes us back in time with ultra-creative entries and exits around an almost forgotten trick, the Time Machine. It concludes 3 minutes of total domination with a 360 bike flip landed just at the buzzer, enough to blow your hair off the thousands of spectators delighted to discover new faces, and to enjoy this fresh wind coming from Japan.
