A few showers and cold gusty winds didn’t stop the world’s best freeride mountain bikers from taking on the biggest jump ever seen in Europe. In front of his home town fans in Uppsala (SWE) Anton Thelander has become the first winner of ‘Martin Söderström Invitational’. Watch the highlights of Martin Soderstrom’s first signature event right here:http://win.gs/1bU5GDp
Martin’s excitement was big to kick-off his first own event, but in the end everything went well: “The weather was really on and off leading up to the event, and I was a bit nervous about how the 14 invited riders would handle the big road gap with less training than planned. But they adapted amazingly quickly and we witnessed what could very well be the highest level of riding all year”, resumed the organizer himself, Martin Soderstrom.
The event, best described as a freeride mountain bike Big Air event, was decided in front of about 6,000 people gathering in the Botanic Garden below the Uppsala Castle. After a qualifying session the eight best riders were passing on into a head to head format, the level of riding was off the hook. Every competitor challenged another rider and the athlete with the best run out of two runs moved on to the next round. The riders were pushing themselves hard to impress the judges.
In the semis Uppsala’s favorite and local Anton Thelander took out the talented Szymon Godziek from Poland. The young Swedish shooting star of 2013 got challenged by the Frenchman Antoine Bizet in the final showdown. Antoine, who got 2nd at last year’s Red Bull Rampage, kicked off his deciding run immediately with a no hand backflip on the first step-down, raising the bar with a gigantic crowd-pleasing double backflip over the 50-foot (15 meters) road gap, finishing his run off with an opposite flatspin x-up.
But Thelander smiled at the top, pushed away and started his run –supported by the home crowd’s roaring – with an impressive 360 tailwhip at the step-down, pulling a massive backflip tailwhip over the big road gap, and wrapping up his run with a clean backflip barspin. “I saw Bizet’s run and I knew that I had to pull off the best tricks I could possibly do. I believed it could work and it did!” said Anton Thelander.
The judges awarded Thelander’s higher technical level and he was crowned the king of ‘Martin Söderström Invitational’, exactly on the day 352 years after Karl XI was crowned Swedish king on the very same spot in Uppsala. “This is absolutely insane. I could never have dreamed this would happen when the season started. It was so fun riding in front of my home crowd and today could simply not have ended any better”, concluded Thelander.
Here are all results of the ‘Martin Söderström Invitational’ 2013 final:
1st – Anton Thelander, SWE
2nd – Antoine Bizet, FRA
3rd – Alexander Alanko, SWE
4th – Szymon Godziek, POL
5th – Linus Sjöholm, SWE
6th – Xavier Pasamonte Romero, ESP
7th – Andreu Lacondeguy, ESP
8th – Louis Reboul, FRA
If you want to watch the entire contest as video on demand, then go to http://www.svtplay.se/video/
You can follow Martin’s season via his fanpage on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=
Ron Callahan is the chief cook and bottlewasher at Bike World News, doing everything from website design to bike reviews.