At only 19 years of age, TSG’s Thomas Genon wins the Red Bull Joyride at the legendary Crankworx Festival in Whistler (Canada) – the most prestigious Slopestyle-contest in the world. The underdog surprised the mountain bike world with his victory as this young talented rider was not seen as threat for the top spot on the podium. In a tough battle with Martin Söderström, for 1st place, he came out on top, leaving Martin to take a 2nd place. Freeride icon Cam McCaul gained 3rd place.
His performance, especially his 2nd run in the finals, couldn´t have been any better: Thomas started his winning run with a 360° x-up off the starting drop, followed by a tailwhip on the boner-log and a backflip no-hander over the first gap jump. The young Belgian impressed the worldwide audience with his smooth and perfectly timed frontflip – a trick which Thomas is renowned for. He then proceeded to execute a huge double-tailwhip over the first hip and a tuck no-hander over the second. Further down the course, Thomas exited the fruit-bowl with a 360° x-up, to set himself up for the daring backflip on to the cabin feature – Thomas was the only rider during the event to attempt this. He completed his run with a 360°, dropping off the cabin rooftop, 35 feet on to the final landing. Despite an exploding back tire when landing the drop, Thomas rode through the victory-arch masterfully, taking the win and gaining his competitors’ respect. The Belgian demonstrated his tremendous skills earlier this year by winning two FMB World Tour events in Austria, the Dakine Airstrike at Saalbach and the 26TRIX-Contest in Leogang.
Fuelling the suspense at Joyride was the failure of other big name riders to make it in to the Super-finals: Cam Zink and Yannick Granieri experienced a hard fall, just like the current FMB World Tour leader Brandon Semenuk who didn´t make it into the top eight and consequently the Super-finals.
Find the replay of the LIVE-webcast on the website of the FMB World Tour:
http://www.fmbworldtour.com/en/multimedia/live-webcast.html
