King Of Ground 2008 final round came to an end with the world circuit final battle, Matthias Dandois vs Sam Foakes. 2009 round 1 started with a 100% japanese contest. Here is a little report about the expert class that still produce some of the next best flatland riders.

The event takes place in Yokohama huge shopping center called Queen´s square for the second year in a row. Easy to access by subway that over crowded place make the attendance huge. The floor is all clean wooden as usual there. Some riders should complain with the lack of space, especially for training, also the contest area is not exactly a square. That being said, riders were focused on riding, available space was not the topic. Moreover, organisers claim their goal to run contests with as more exposure as possible, it obviously requires to make concessions. Looking at the expert class, it has always been a passionating moment at the KOG, the first round of the year was interesting as expected. Is it still necessary to mention a 1st place in the expert category is a ticket to pro class? A lot of riders, most of them unknown abroad, but well supported by locals who came to the event, entered the category. Many riders follow trends but have already achieved high level skills. With some more original ideas they will probably do good results in the next few years. Thanks to the judges, the riders qualified for the final were the best both at skill and creativity. Syuichi Osada won the category with a long and perfectly mastered routine on the front. He did not enter contest last year to focus on riding, it works quiet well as he could enter the pro competition right after. Eichiro Watanabe also did very clean runs both for qualification and final, he ends up 4th. Some riders like the second Taiko Kaneta and the third Shinya Matsuura prove they have progressed to a next step, last year they were in the twenties or so of the category. Shinpei Hanawa keeps a good result compared with his last year ones because of a solid run. The last but not the least, Fumiya Sasagawa finished 10th, entered the final with a very innovative and risky riding. Pressure also was huge and we saw many good riders unable to pull their tricks in front of judges, rider counterparts and attendance. It may be good to notice than most of the above mentioned names are not exacly new comers in Japan, most of them had video part in more or less recent japanese dvds or even receive support from shops or makers.

About the pro catogory, many people were at Yokohama with video cameras, hope they will share pro class videos somewhere on the internet.... One more time, big respect to last year expert competitors, Yuki Sakai made a very impressive and stylish run, Takahiro Ikeda  and Yasunari Ijima both reached a good result.

Photos: http://jimalog.blogspot.com

Expert Results:

Pro Results: