OG Gypsy Games 2005

     3rd OG Summer Gypsy Games

Ajka, Gypsy Games. The most wanted event of the Hungarian flatlanders. This camp and contest is the best source of motivation for the majority of the flatlanders in our country. We do not really want any big companies to be involved with the organization, we just like to do it on our own to keep it real and to make sure that the vibe is perfect. All the prizes are gifts from our friends that run the Hungarian distribution of VANS and some bike parts, DVDs and T-shirts from our shop. It is a big gathering of friends that ride for the most obvious reason: because we love to ride. So there are no security guards, no roaring music, no entry fee, just fun, fun, fun.

This is the third OG Summer Gypsy Games in a row, but we have been organizing contests in the city of Ajka since 1999. We chose this city because all the circumstances are perfect for comps and camps: there is a sports park with three good courts very close to each other, and a youth hostel right next to one of them with very reasonable prices. More and more people come every year to ride, progress and compete. In 2003 there have been about 50 riders, last year around 90-100, and this time around 130 riders showed up from the whole country, plus we had international participators from France /Christophe Dassié, Alexis Desolneux and Armin Batoumeni/, riders from Austria /Markus Redlberger and Sebastian Grubinger/, lots of guys from Slovakia, a few from Germany and Croatia, and there was a guy from Moscow who was dedicated enough to travel 40 hours on a train just to ride and compete.

The camp started on Monday, and we were surprised that the courts have been packed with riders even on the first day. The sun was shining, and there was some serious riding from the pros and the upcoming riders.
We /Adam Kun, Marton Szilagyi and me/ joined them on Tuesday night, but the weather turned to be a bit rainy so on Wednesday all we could do is watch the Dorkin collection on Zoltan Barta’s laptop, and then decided to go and ride. We had to cancel the bus excursion to the lake Balaton that is the number one place to party and hang out on the beach. The rain did not stop anybody from riding: most people were so enthusiastic that they kept on practicing rolling tricks for hours in the pouring rain.

In the following days everybody tried to master some new tricks and get their combos dialed for the qualifiers on Saturday. To make people even happier, there was a movie premiere of Marton’s Trick Stars 6 video on Friday night that brought the house down. The final version of the DVD will be available within a few months. There were some other flatland movies shown such as Tom Hajdu’s one of the 2005 Worlds in Prague. It was good to see so many riders coming together and watch those videos.

The weather turned quite good again for Saturday so we started with the registration and practice for the qualification. A bit less riders entered the Masterclass than last year, some of them wanted to enter pro, but –for a reason that is hard to understand- they did not enter the contest when they saw that there were so many very good riders in the Pro class.

There are so many good beginners that it is hard to count: some Ajka locals did framestand tomahawks, hitchhikers and pinkysqueaks quite consistently, and Gabor Szitas from Kecskemet pulled cliffhangers, hitchhiker to karl kruzer to full barflip out. He qualified in first place for the finals.

The Masterclass had a quite good turnout with riders like Gyorgy Krautsieder /tomahawks in every possible way, gerator bikevarials to upsidedown megaspin, backside donut to tomahawk, etc./, Andras Balogh /hang5 to halfpacker to crossfoot hitchhiker to crosshand steamroller, etc./ and Danila from Russia /opposite crosshand steamroller to crackpacker, footjam decade, no footed steamroller/. There have been some very good runs even though most of them were quite nervous.
There had been so many good riders in the Pro class that we knew that it was going to be hard to do justice with the judging. We had a very hard time to choose the 8 best riders, but I think we made a good decision after analyzing the runs from Armin’s video cam.
Ever heard of Laszlo Tivadar? He qualified in first place with tricks and combos like pumping spinning caboose to crossfoot timemachine to regular timemachine to blender to switchfooted timemachine, cliffhanger turbines to backside donut to crackpacker to half barspin out. Markus from Austria is always amazing me with the way he rides: so hard tricks, original and technical moves that it is hard to follow: crossfooted whiplashes, barturns, nosewheelies in circles and crosshanded whiplashes in the middle of his combos, all rolling. Speaking of rolling, it was good to see Alexis Desolneux on a proper floor that was not too small and wavy for his style of riding. He did some crazy hard crossfooted whiplash turbines, crossfooted halfpackers to hitchhikers to whatever he felt like.

Many people had not so good runs with lots of touches but the level of riding was very high. Adam Kun also had some problems with getting used to the floor, but he pulled some hard combos and qualified in sixth place.

On Saturday night we went out to do a karaoke party in a pub, but since the pub had many smaller rooms instead of having a large one, there were not too many new talents discovered. Everybody had a very good time, especially the French guys, Armin, Christophe and Mislav from Croatia who can tell more stories about anything than anybody else.

We woke up quite late on Sunday, and it was time to the finals. The weather was rather unsettled, so we all hoped that we could finish the runs without any problems.
The expert class was still dominated by Gabor Szitas, followed by David Duska, and the guy on the third place was Jozef Scherer from Slovakia who managed to do a rather clean run.
In Masterclass, everybody had good runs but Andras Balogh took the win with his brakeless, fast and powerful riding, just ahead of Zoltan Papp who did a crosshand steamroller to crackpacker to halfpacker to halfpacker on the other side. Gyorgy Krautsieder ended up getting third place. He had the best combos of the class, but touched too many time


We had to postpone the Pro finals for almost an hour because it started raining, but dried up pretty fast. Unluckily, the guy who qualified in first place, Laszlo had some trouble with his rear wheel so he decided not to enter the finals, even though many of us offered him our rear wheels…
Csaba Gyori finished at fifth place with a barflippy run packed with hard tricks, Alexis touched a lot but did very smooth rolling combos as usual for fourth place.
Peter Szabolcsi decided to do a safe run with some of his more dialed combos. He decided to do some easier versions of his signature megaspin to bikeflip to upsidedown megaspin to bikeflip back to megaspin to footjam decade and crosshand steamroller to full kickflip to crosshand steamroller.
The seventeen-year-old David Nagy managed to perform a very good run with hardly any touches. His combos are very long and difficult. He can do it all, it will take a little time until he gets international recognition. One of my favorite tricks to watch from David is crosshand steamroller to no brake jump to crossfooted one handed tomahawk on the rear peg (!)… Second place.
Adam Kun took an older combo out of his pocket and did a superb run packed with his original and stylish tricks: hang5 to spinning-pumping crackpacker, crossfooted teakettle to full barspin to halfpacker, brakeless whiplashes on both sides, pumped spinning hitchhikers, and did it all with the smoothest style. It was a well deserved win.

From what I have heard, everybody had a very good time at the Gypsy Games. There were lots of riders asking if we were going to organize the contest and camp next year. The answer is yes, we want to keep doing it and to push flatland at its purest form: from riders to riders. Hope to see you next year!!!

Props to Vans Hungary for the gifts, MD for the drinks and Rob Völler, DJ Volrab and Gabor Shield for their help!

Expect some downloadable videos of the OG Summer Gypsy Games at www.original-gypsy.com quite soon!

15th of August 2005 - Andras Pentek

2005-08-15

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