A few weeks ago I heard rumours about a contest in Koblenz, Germany. So I decided to ask Frank Lukas if it´s supposed to be a secret private contest or if we shall make some noise. Well, of course it wasn´t a secret - just a bit shortdated. The idea was to do a national contest with team of 2 riders from each federal state of Germany. Math and geography lesson: 16 federal states multiplied with 2 riders makes a total of 32 riders!

An international jury (Alex Jumelin, Effraim Catlow and Martti Kuoppa) was supposed to make sure the judging would be fair and impartial.

Most of the riders arrived on Saturday. Since the floor was still under construction a place right next to it served as a practice area.

As you can see there are some rather old looking walls in the background. They are actually old and part of the outstanding location of this event. The contest location was just in front of a huge statue of the German Emperor Wilhelm. History lesson: "Wilhelm I, also known as Wilhelm the Great (William Frederick Louis, German: Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig) (22 March 1797–9 March 1888) of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia (2 January 1861–9 March 1888) and the first German Emperor (18 January 1871–9 March 1888)."

Ok I admit that was just copied and pasted from Wikipedia. No more lessons from now on! Promised!

In the evening all the riders met for dinner and some drinks. Good times!

But on the next day things were getting serious. Contest day! Practice started around 10 and the contest was supposed to start between 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon depending on the weather. Speaking of the weather - it wasn´t too friendly but the people from Koblenz didn´t seemed to care. Just in time for the start the contest the place was packed with people. Haven´t seen such a big crowd for some time.

The format of the contest was an excellent idea. In each battle two teams competed. Every team had 4 minutes time to show their combos. Since the teams consisted of 2 riders it was entertaining and diversified for the crowd - basically like a regular 1on1 battle - but their wasn´t that stressful tension between the riders since they were teammates. Perfect for the crowd, good for the riders and the general atmosphere! More team battles please!

Some riders even came up with a real team performance and even team tricks (e.g. "no-handed" hitchhiker with the other rider holding the rear peg). Some funny ideas and a good show for the crowd! 

Of course their was a lot of serious riding as well! Especially the two finalists were busting out. Matti and Camilo from Berlin were competing against the locals Frank and Waldemar in the final. Bad luck for Waldemar, his chain broke in the middle of the final. But it´s still a team contest so Frank tried even harder to pull his combos! A real thriller! 

In the end it were probably the really unique combos of Matti and Camilo´s extremely fast riding that convinced the judges. Team Berlin won the final battle which means Matti and Camilo will fly to Japan for the KOG. Congratulations!

The complete results:

1st Berlin - Matti Röse and Camillo Guiterrez
2nd Rheinland-Pfalz - Frank Lukas and Waldemar Fatkin
3rd Hamburg - Michael Steingräber and Sascha Heydemann
4th Nordrhein-Westfalen - Benny Grossjohann and Pascal Nanko
5th Saarland - Stephan Cornely and Lasse Süttnig
6th Bayern - Sebastian Pospischil and Thomas Hirsch
7th Brandenburg - Daniel Fuhrmann and Jonny Krämer
8th Niedersachsen - Thomas Thämlitz and Davis Hoffmann
9th Hessen - Ronny Engelmann and Rayk Hahne
10th Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Markus Reich and Steffen Peter
11th Schleswig Holtstein - Thore Saggau and Ben Ofuso
12th Sachsen - Alex Gürbigund and Sebastian Martin
13th Baden-Württemberg - Sven Steinbach and Philipp Ulricher
14th Sachsen-Anhalt - Flo Sailer and Johannes Fatkin
15th Thüringen - Sebastian Schulz and Tobias Schade
16th Bremen - Till Scheibner and Erkan Ötztürk