Ricardo sent over some photos, results, and some video links from his annual dirt comp in Vegas…
“If you would have told me in 2004 that I was about to begin hosting 10 years of BMX dirt comps, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. From the feedback I received for the 10th annual Ricardo Laguna Dirt Challenge, it was a bigger and better contest than any over the past 10 years. As for Extreme Thing, now on its 18th year, we had a huge turnout, great bands and the best weather we could have asked for. This year we had a solid lineup of riders from all over the world, plus a mix of heavy hitters and great up-and-comers. Some of the runs I saw couldn’t have even been done in video games.
“One new addition to this year’s Ricardo Laguna Dirt Challenge was the High Air Jump that brought me back to the King of Dirt days. When I was working on building this with the Clark County Heavy Equipment team, they couldn’t believe I set up an 18-foot pole on top of an eight-foot lip because they didn’t believe a BMX bike could go that high. The two winners TJ Ellis and Austin Winters ended up maxing out the high bar and splitting the winnings.
“Extreme Thing 2013 was such a huge success, Las Vegas, Clark County Parks & Recreation, the riders and all the attendees can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2014! For more info and photos, visit www.ExtremeThing.com.” — Ricardo
After an evening filled with outstanding riding, it was finally TSG’s Iouri “iPod” Podlatchikov who won the Arctic Challenge title, ahead of Chinese Yiwei Zhang and the Japanese shooting star Ayumu Hirano.
When Iouri returned to Oslo this week he was determent to defend his title as the World Champion, and so he did. His winning run was highly technical, combined with great hight and style consisting of the following:
A skyhigh frontside 900, followed by a backside 900 mute, frontside 1080 tailgrab and with the finale hit of a giant cab doublecork 1080 mutegrab, a run which gave him a total score of 90.2 points.
Iouri commented: “The Arctic Challenge is a contest that I used to wait for, because it’s always been in the end of the season and it’s always been on a high level; of technical difficulty and also a high level on style. I am very proud that we still represent that today; really represent snowboarding the way that it should be – for example those big Backside Airs and some really really good grabs that you don’t see often, that’s important to me. And to be the winner right now is just insane! I’m excited to ride more contests with Ayumu in it; he’ll obviously be there in the future. There are not too many riders that have a little bit of skate style. I’m a skater and he’s a skater. I really like to watch people that have a little bit of skate style in their riding. So excited about that, and I hope that he’ll develop his tricks even more.”
Ramon Hunziker is the poster child for mtb dirt jumping, slopestyle and freeriding in Switzerland. We have been supporting Ramon for couple years now as ambassador and are happy to now welcome him in the international pro team.
After lots of contest experiences in Europe Ramon entered the international stage in 2012 with an invitation to Redbull Rampage im Utah. And he made it to the finals, ranking 16th. Big mountain contests are among Ramons favorite as he likes tricks as much as free riding and is a talented and creative rider in both disciplines.
Being part of the Swiss Flying Metal Crew, Ramon supports rookies, builds bike courses and organizes own events like the Rocket Air in Thun.
Transworld Snowboarding states Elias Elhardt’s part in Pretty Wise as one of the best parts in People’s new the video.
People Films is one of the biggest and most legendary productions in the USA. Elias was spending a big part of his last season in the US and this is the outcome. Thumbs up for Elias!
In April 2012, TSG`s freeski lady Caja Schoepf and snowboarder Aline Bock went on a 10-days boat trip to the Lyngen Alps in northern Norway, to escape the crowded skiresorts and to find some untouched powder. Captivated by the open space, stunning landscapes, polar lights and deep blue fjords Caja and Aline decided on a trip that brought together their passions for the mountains and the sea. The Lyngen Alps are located approximately 500 km north of the polar circle set the perfect scene for an unforgettable film and photo trip.
Fetzi Daniel Fetz just came back from the Wakeboard World Championships in the Philippines with a happy 11th place. The level was super high and the younger once are killing it, states Fetzi. Watch the video above for his final run.
In total 210 riders of 32 countries participated and again they elected Fetzi as the Riders Representative for the IWWF World Council. 2 people of the IOC (Olympic Comittee) where in the Phillipnes and Daniel taught one of them his first wakeboard tricks. Both were impressed how spectacular wakeboarding is, they will definitely give a good feedback to the committee. Next month Fetzi travels to Switzerland to hold a presentation in front of the IOC, so we keep the fingers crossed, that wakeboarding gets Olympic. The final decision will be taken in Buenos Aires in Sept 2013.
Anne-Flore Marxer sat down with a Redbull journalist and tells you everything from sneaking out from her parents house to go snowboarding as a teenager to how it feels riding the big mountains she does nowadays.
Daniel Wedemeijer aka ‘The Flying Dutchman’ teamed up with Tom Lammerse this summer and made a day trip to five different skateparks all over Holland. Daniel has been a supporter of the Amsterdam based Lifestyle blog/brand since day one so he was more than stoked to film for this exclusive video.
