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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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