Saturday 31.7.2010 started just like another day before. The sun rose up, birds started to sing, temperature was hitting the tropical values and Johny Cook went to walk his dog. Everything was in normal, just in the time when 20 cars or so got to Litomerice downtown and guys with small bikes were petting out of the cars in front of a Jesuit church of Lady Day. Are you asking what was going on? The answer is easy.

Saturday was the day of the second edition of Flatland Church Fight in Litomerice, Czech Republic. The event took place in a Jesuit church as last year. We just changed the date from October to July this time and it was much better - it wasn’t that cold, so no jackets and hats were needed. What makes contest fun and much more enjoyable is music. Jimmy J. Jackson from Dresden, Germany found some free time in his busy schedule and came to play some of his great tunes – thanks for that Jimmy, we really appreciate it!

We wanted to make Flatland Church Fight interesting not only for BMX fans, so we invited four well known artists from Northern Bohemia. They prepared two exhibitions. The first one was called DEFLORO (photo exhibition with shots made by Petr Kosarek, Ana Blizikova and Anna Hunkova) and the second one was called EAU-DE-COLLAGE (funny collages made by Pavel Goncarov).

The event had a different format than last year. 9 riders were invited straight to the finals and 9 more riders could get to the finals from qualification runs. The only invited riders that made it to the contest were guys from Germany (Michael Steingraeber, Pascal Nanko, Sascha Heydemann) and Camilo Gutierrez from Peru. The invited riders from Hungary just sent us a message on Saturday morning that their car broke down and they were stuck in Budapest (too bad you couldn’t make it guys). The only invited rider from France Matthias Dandois didn’t also make it, but we don’t know what could go wrong. Despite such problems another 19 riders from the Czech Republic and Germany entered the contest for example Dominik Nekolny (CZE), Martin Drazil (CZE), Petr Hofman (CZE), Kevin Nikulsky (GER), Rayk Hahne (GER) and many more.

The contest started right on time with the first qualification runs at 12:30 PM. Dom Nekolny (CZE), David Hoffmann from Hamburg, Germany and Martin Drazil (CZE) made it to the finals without any problem. The judges (Mila Hasak Haspeklo (CZE), Martin Schulz (GER), Jirka Zeman (CZE) and Jon Dowker (USA)) were a bit struggling with the last rider who would make it to the finals. Rayk Hahne from Rostock, Germany and Mates Tucek from Trutnov, Czech Republic had similar results. Eventually the judges decided for the Czech rider, who convinced them with his brakeless run which was full of over-jumps and crazy switches.

The finals started with a little delay after 3:00 PM and there was a lot to see. Pascal Nanko had a difficult situation, because he started the whole finals. The judges made a good decision when they chose Mates Tucek to the finals. Mates proved us all that he is one of the top riders in the Czech Republic – he progressed from the last place in qualification to the 4th place in the finals. Sixteen years old Kevin Nikulsky from Luemen, Germany was a big surprise to all of us. He was fifth after the qualification and then ended up 7th.

The most hardcore tricks were done by two favorite riders. Dominik Nekolny and Mike S. did an incredible show and the crowd went crazy. One of the highlights was Mike S. with his no handed pedal timemachine. Dominik didn’t want to stay back of course so he pulled some brutal tech and long front-wheel combos.

The judges needed more time to figure out the final results, because all the riders rode incredibly. And the final results go like this:

1. Mike Steingraeber (GER) 2. Dominik Nekolny (CZE)
3. Martin Drazil (CZE)
4. Mates Tucek (CZE)
5. Petr Hofman (CZE)
6. David Hoffmann (GER)
7. Kevin Nekulski (GER)
8. Sascha Heydemann (GER)
9. Camilo Gutierrez (PE)
10. Patrik Ras (CZE)
11. Michal Dufek (CZE)
12. Pascal Nanko (GER)
13. Rayk Hahne (GER)
14. Sebastian Schulz (GER)
15. Fanda Adamek (CZE)
16. Lukas Weiss (CZE)
17. Josef Smehlik (CZE)
18. Vojta Drda (CZE)
19. Dustin Alt (GER)
20. Tomas Vejmola (CZE)
21. Pavel Kocur (CZE)
22. Vojta Bublik (CZE)
23. Julia Preuss (GER)

There was a best combo contest after the finals and the ceremony. Kevin Nikulsky pulled an unbelievable long and high speed back-wheel combo. The first six riders got a lot of giveaways from our partners – skateshop.cz, represent, Dickies, Meatfly and Shock!. The top three riders got medals shaped as key to the church gate hand made by Petr Hofman.

When we cleaned the riding area a bit and riders had a shower, we headed to the after-party in Zanzibar. There were already a lot of people in the bar when we arrived. We ate some steaks and sausages from grill. We screened some flatland movies – Dejavu, KGB Impulsivity, FlatSphere, etc.. DJs were playing some reggae and ambient down-tempo chill out tunes. Everybody was having good times and I would say it was a nice ending of Saturday. Thanks to all partners and sponsors, also thanks to all riders and helpers for coming to the event and supporting flatland scene in the Czech Republic.