More than 50 skaters, around 20 BMX-ers and a supporting crowd of around 1000 people gathered at the I.O.R. skatepark in Bucharest for the last major contest of the season. Saturday was pretty much a spoiler, since the qualifying sessions were interrupted by autumn rain.
A heavy night and a smooth party later, the same people showed up at the skatepark, hungry for riding sessions and friendly duels between riding buddies. The weather was fine and the sun peeked at the contest from between the clouds.
The BMX-contest was torn apart by
Alex Don from Cluj,
Alin from Baia Mare and the mighty Royal BMX gang from Sibiu, who leave an unforgettable mark to each contest they attend.

15 year old
Alex was clearly dominant, showing unmatched control, a fine technique and some huge air. He pulled 360's, tuck no-handers and toboggan 180's on the mini-spine, grinded feeble and double-peg on the ledge, tailwhipped the small pyramid and flew with inverts, turndowns to fakie, 360 flatspins to fakie and 540's out of the quarter.

Last year's winner and
Mirraco rider
Alin proved once again to be a smooth operator on the technical side of things as he kicked it with smith, smith to double-pegs and feeble to 180-off at the ledge, spinned 180 barspins and 360's to fakie in the bank and clean 360's off the funbox and worked the flatrail on top of it with some icepick grinds and an impressive railride to tailwhip to the flat.
"Royal" Comanu' leaped huge distances around the park, with a "go huge or go home" mindset, but he didn't just leave it to that. The main rail of the set-up was 360'd and over-icepicked, the flatrail, met an innovative grind, bottom bracket and front peg, the ledge suffered from lengthy smiths on it's higher side, while the mini-pyra was transfer-whipped once again, huge 180's and 360's were spun off the funbox and the banks played host for some delicious footjam nosepick tailwhips.

Some predictable impressive riding came from Sibiu's 15 year old
Alex Jiga, the one who won several contests in his hometown this summer. "Jardel" rode smooth as always, took 180's and 360's to the quarter or off the funbox, turned it down in great style wherever he could and transferred alley-oops from the mini kicker to the banks on the far left side.
Alex Negrean, a Bucharest local who impressed last year's crowd with his gap from the quarter, over the subrail, to the flat, returned with this same stunt, but placed it this time in a line with a backflip on the spine.

In the end, it was a pretty clear first for
Alex, second for
Alin and third for
Comanu', but
Jiga and
Beju, another 15 year Sibiu native, exhibited good tricks, excellent style and proved a lot of potential for the years to come, so they deserves at least a shout-out!
The following Highest Air contest in the bowlcorner of the park brought the aforementioned people together for a jam-session that was the crowd's delight.
Comanu' flew constantly high above the improvised lath and earned the contest and everybody's respect, but young rippers
Alex "The Don" and
Jiga are already a force to be reckoned with, as they are friends of air and style themselves.
I.O.Riding proved to be once again a ton of fun, and people are anxious to see how next year the ante will be upped.
Maximilian Munteanu,
I.O.Riding firing squad