FISE World Tour stop 2. Andorra. Where the hell is that anyway?

Jul 04, 2014

Written by Bart de Jong

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After a couple of international adventures the FISE crew is taking it one step further in 2014. The official World Tour kicked off in their hometown Montpellier and the next World Tour stop was on the program for Andorra last weekend. Andorra is a small country with 70.000 inhabitants that is located in between Spain and France in the mountains. The Tax free environment combined with the ski/mtb hills and all facilities necessary to live make it an interesting place. For close to three hours in the shuttle from the airport we had no clue where we were heading, but once there it all made sense. The spine mini was set up in the town center while wakeboarding and MTB were up in the Vallnord facility.

13 pro riders made it over to battle for big checks and World Tour points. All of them rode on a high level in qualification with truckdrivers over the spine, flairs and double whips being standard tricks. Riders needed to do something different to stand out or add to the standard tricks of today.

During finals on Saturday evening the funny shit talking disappeared for just a moment and the riders were focusing on the riding. Superstar's Ola Selsjord from Norway finished 13th but that wasn't because he wasn't throwing down. The level was just super high and even though he did flairs, double whips, barspin flairs, truckdrivers and barspins to no-handers, he ended up getting 13th. Ola set the standard super high and all others stepped it up. The tricks that Ola did could easily win other contests on this planet but the FISE World Tour stop in Andorra was a different story.

Istvan Caillet is a great rider from France who also competed in the MTB contest up in the mountain. He had to rush down to the valley to catch the Spine finals and finished 12th. AJ Anaya had quite the adventure making it to Andorra. AJ had also planned on doing the Barcelona Extreme contest in Barcelona and left the contest straight from the platform skipping the Best Trick event only to see the bus take off in front of him. 5 minutes later he joined the BMX-ers on the ramp again to catch the rest of the Spine finals. Powerful runs gave AJ 10th place.

Alessandro Barbero received an expenses paid invite to the FISE comp in Andorra because he made top 5 in Montpellier. The top 5 finishers of each stop receive a package deal to make it to the next FISE World event. Although Spine Mini is not what Alessandro rides all the time he adapted to the ramp quickly and did his trick reportoire in the spine mini with sub box. Although slightly disappointed by just finishing 10th it needs to be said that the level of riding was just super high and one point more would have put him in 8th straight away. 9th place went to Russian talent Konstantin Andreev who has tech moves and isn't scared to throw his bars last minute. He ended just behind Dean Cueson who does have a unique style and goes higher than anyone on that ramp while keeping it smooth and doing original tricks. Seeing Dean ride is very enjoyable.

Daniel Wedemeijer did a long first run full of (lip) tricks all over the ramp. His opposite airs and flairs plus use of the subbox got him 7th place. He qualified in 5th (and was on an invite position for Maylaysia) but dropped down two places in the finals. Jack Clark is nonstop. He's got more tricks than most and in a miniramp contest also the lip tricks count. With no real time limit on the runs (everyone had two runs that both counted towards one total score) things were kept a bit freestyle in Andorra. The Haro rider got 6th right behind Jack Watts who will be on his way to Malaysia in September together with Total team mates Mark Webb (4th) and Alex Coleborn (2nd). Third place and making the podium was Michael Beran. He stepped it up two not

ches by doing double truckdrivers over the spine, and 360 double tailwhips of the same double coping spine. His handplant backflips on the spine were sweet and now that he has a brake back on his bike he was not afraid to do tricks on the subbox, something that others were missing out on a little bit. Well deserved podium for Beran.

Coleborn has a great mix of tech tricks and big moves and got 2nd. He missed out on a free trip to Andorra finishing 7th in Montpellier, but will be on his way to Malaysia in September. After finishing in second place Daniel Dhers in qualification, he did not want to ride the finals. After some rain the riders had to get warmed up again but hey, it's a contest and when it's on, it's on. In the end it worked out for Daniel as he moved up one spot and won. The € 8000,= Euro check was his. That will buy some gas for his new Masarati.

Every rider in the finals had four attempts for a Best Trick they wanted to do. The FISE is bringing a Best Trick comp to all stops with a separate classification. Not everyone pulled their tricks within the four attempts that they had but Jack Clark pulled a triple barspin 360 and received a € 1000,- check for his efforts. Had Michael Beran pulled his 360 bike flip to tailwhip over the spine it would have been a clear victory for him. He was close, real close. Hopefully next time.

Hats off to everyone who rode and taking BMX to the next level. See you in Malaysia.

BdJ

FISE World Andorra stop 2 FINAL results Pro spine.

1.   DHERS Daniel   29 ans   Caracas   92.67 pts
2.   COLEBORN Alex   21 ans   Fareham   92.00 pts
3.   BERAN Michael   24 ans   Novy Bydzov   89.67 pts
4.   WEBB Mark   29 ans   Fareham   89.00 pts
5.   WATTS Jack   17 ans   Portsmouth   88.67 pts
6.   CLARK Jack   19 ans   Essex   87.00 pts
7.   WEDEMEIJER Daniel   24 ans   Amsterdam   86.67 pts
8.   CUESON Dean   22 ans   Birmingham   84.67 pts
9.   ANDREEV Konstantin   21 ans   Saint-Petersburg   84.33 pts
10.   BARBERO Allessandro   31 ans   Ceva   84.00 pts
11.   ANAYA Aj   26 ans   Santa Ana Ca   82.67 pts
12.   CAILLET Istvan   21 ans   St Foy De Peyrolieres   79.67 pts
13.   SELSJORD Ola   20 ans   Oslo   78.00 pts

Best trick winner: Jack Clark. Triple barspin 360 to fakie