Catfish was in town for 10 days already as he did a little promo tour with Maxime Charveron (FRA) and Mike Varga. Next to this crew Alessandro Barbero (ITA), Brandon Loupos (AUS), Kenneth Tancre (BEL), Daniel Wedemeijer (NED), Dale O'Brien (AUS), Alex Nikulin (RUS), Jason Watts (AUS) and a few other pro riders showed up. Top spot for the World Series stop in Langkawi was good for € 8000 Euros. You could buy a few fast mopeds for that money and do plenty of €2,= fill-ups to explore the island.
Thursday saw practice and a qualification round for the semi finals. 19 riders made it to the semi where they met up with the top 5 riders in the series at that point who went straight to the semi finals without having to ride on Thursday. Maxime Charveron likes the mobile FISE course the way it was set up in Langkawi. Next to the big transitions the course also had a street section which Maxime ended up using just as well. If people consider Maxime the European Dennis Enarson, you have an idea that he did pretty well on a set-up like this. Don't ever count Alessandro Barbero out at a contest as in the pre qualification he made it to 2nd place coming fresh off of a Woodward stay. He has still got it. Haro's Jason Watts has his own unique style which stood out among the other riders to score 3rd in pre-qualification. His run included tables, decades and plenty of smiles.
Friday's Semi-finals got underway in good weather conditions. The FISE had hired a Shaman who would make sure the contest did not have to fear of rain. So far so good as the 5 pre qualified riders joined the others to fight for a top twelve final spot. Missing out on the final by a mere 0.333 of a point was Dale O'Brien. To show how high the level was, his run included triple whips, giant flairs, good 360-s and double flips. Squeezing into the final on spot 12 was Belgium's Kenneth Tancre who showed two solid runs in his first big international comp doing superflips, 360 Indian airs on the box, 3 double whips etc at speed. WattsUp secured himself a spot in the final with a 10th place finish just behind front flipping Alex Nikulin, DK's Mike Varga, and Alessandro Barbero who qualified in 8th place for the final.
The bleachers were full of people during the night session as DJ Mike Rock kept the tunes going for the riders. Daniel Wedemeijer stepped it up a notch or two after being ill earlier in the week because of food poisoning. The joy of going to Asia.... Brandon Loupos might not necessarily have the best style, but he sure brings the big tricks. He also goes to the sky and back while doing them and ended up qualifying in 6th. 
Konstantin Andreev powered through his two qualifying runs which both counted to get 5th right behind an exhausted Daniel Dhers who had puked a few minutes before his run and was feeling ill as well but got the job done making it to the finals with his reportoire of whips, flairs and X-ups. With the top players in the game Maxime Charveron found himself in spot three behind Alex Coleborn who had an amazing first run and Logan Martin who showed everyone he meant business in Langkawi.
Saturday started with the BMX Open Amateur finals. The Shaman had done his job once again and it was dry during the entire day including the prize ceremoney for the BMX, skate and Roller Amateur contests. And after the prize ceremoney for these classes, the BMX Pro PARK finals were on the program. The comp was moved forward a bit because of the soccer championships that was going on in Asia. After plenty of warm-up and the rider presentation it was time for Kenneth Tancre to start the finals. The Belgian started off with a bang and pulled his first ever 720-whip over a box to kick off his run. The standard was set from here on out. Jason Watts followed and inverted some flairs, did a decade over the hip and the box jump and styled some 360-s over the jump like only this Aussie can. But then, as soon as Alex Nikulin had to ride his run it started to drizzle. It's hard to keep the Russians back so he started anyway with a flair drop-in but crashed as he slipped. It was time to call it and get out the tarps to cover up the course. As time passed by it didn't look like it was going to stop raining. The Shaman got consulted and he said that the prize ceremoney had happened and in his book that's the end of a competition. 
Now that it rained he could not make it stop because the competition was officially over. That guy is either good, or a complete swindler but it meant the comp was over and the semi final results were used as final results for the Malaysia World Series stop.
The big checks were handed out later that night and for a lot of the pro riders it was the most money they'd ever won. 
Look out for the FISE World Series to go ever bigger in 2015. It's time to step it up and step in.
BdJ
BMX Pro Semi Finals results. FISE WORLD SERIES Malaysia
1. MARTIN Logan 21 ans Brisbane
2. COLEBORN Alex 22 ans Fareham
3. CHARVERON Maxime 24 ans
4. DHERS Daniel 29 ans Caracas
5. ANDREEV Konstantin 21 ans Saint-Petersburg
6. LOUPOS Brandon 21 ans Sydney
7. WEDEMEIJER Daniel 24 ans Amsterdam
8. BARBERO Allessandro 31 ans Ceva
9. VARGA Mike 18 ans Toronto
10. NIKULIN Alex 22 ans Krasnodar
11. WATTS Jason 21 ans Brisbane
12. TANCRE Kenneth 19 ans Kemmel
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.