Woodward Beijing hosted skateboarders and bmx riders from all over the world this past weekend to celebrate its grand opening with a giant party that included skateboarding and BMX demos, the Alli Best Trick, fireworks and more. The VIP-invited guest list grew daily as new arrivals joined the festivities, including Tony Hawk, Sandro Dias, Ryan Sheckler, Josh Harrington, Trey Jones, Ty Morrow, Anthony Napolitan, Josh Betley and Dakota Roche. The crew spent three days touring Chinese landmarks such as the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall of China,
On Saturday the judging started at 9 in the morning with the third Group of amateur street. Pro Dirt finished at 11 at night (!) so it had been a full day at the FISE event and it was time for a beer. Make that the Australian Bar again for a few, followed by the Las Vegas place, and even the Rockstar bar downtown. All this with a 10 kilo backpack full of camera gear on my back, on foot. Yup it was a long day but a good one at that. It didn’t take long to pass out. Here are some pics for your enjoyment of day number 2.
The weather wasn’t with us the first two days and with an outdoor event you will have to work with what you get. The dirt course was too wet and soft on Thursday and Friday so everything that was scheduled for those days was put into the Saturday evening program which meant straight finals for the Amateurs as well as the Pros. But there were problems with the jumps, and the strong wind that had some of the riders pull out. But those who did ride put on a show for the (big) crowd.
Amateurs had a hip to start off with followed by an S turn and another two sets. The pro riders left from the higher container and were treated with 3 big killer jumps. Bob Manchester (UK) was riding well in practice but ended up in 7th behind one of the Musso brothers named Mathieu (FRA). Dusan Antalik (CZE) does mean one-handed tables which looked good over the big ones as he could hold them what seemed like forever, or long enough for the crowd to scream yeah! It was a bit of a surprise to see Maddog (USA) drop in on dirt.