http://mpora.com/videos/9Vnacjaii
Sunshine, an excellently shaped contest set-up and an international starter field were reason enough to get an upgrade to a 4star TTR contest. In the superfinal, the ten qualified riders were showing an extremely high riding level which led to the fact that they had to expect a deduction of points if they were just blinking at the landing.
On Friday, 47 riders had to demonstrate their abilities in front of the judges at spring-like conditions in their two qualification runs. The judges Andy Lehmann, Bernd Egger, Luki Draxl and Paz Gruber set a high value on variety and perfect performance and after day one the Finn Ville Uotilla was leading, followed by Jean-Jacques Roux (FRA) and Seppe Smiths (BEL).
The motivated ones among the riders could ally right after the qualification on Friday and give their best at the ATOMIC-TAG-TEAM-AWARD for one hour. Nine teams with a max. of 5 riders got together for the showdown of this team action at the special contest setup consisting of a Step-Up Roller, the Absolut Gun (a big Up-Rail), a Gap-Kicker with Kinked-Box as well as the gigantic Absolut Wall with a Spine.
The winner of the 3,000 Euros prize money of the ATOMIC-TAG-TEAM-AWARD was the YES team, consisting of Flo Mausser, Herby Thaler, Fips Gruber, Simon Gruber and Michi Stanschitz who impressed the judges with creative tricks, the most variations and their synchronic riding style.
While Stani was rocking the Wall with a FS 540 Melon from the Spine, Herby was sticking an easy FS 7 Truckdriver over the Roller a few meters away at the same time and Flo was using the Gap-Kicker to jump the Wall of the Spine for a stylish BS 3 out in that exact moment.
Superfinal:
Ville Uotilla (FIN) coped easily with the strict judging and raised the bar with a FS 9 Melon and a Switch BS 9 in his first run. He was only topped by Absolut Park local Herby Thaler (AUT) and his massive BS 9 Melon followed by a Cab 270 over the gap to FS Boardslide on the Kinked-Box.
But in the two out of three runs that were judged, the Finn, Jaakko Ruha, was showing the most steady performance: With an extremely clean BS 1080 Tailgrab followed by a FS 9 at the Step-Up Kicker he paved the way for his first place. A Cab 9 and a BS 7 Indy in the second run proved that the Finn was in good shape that day.
Striking performances also came from Matevz Pristavec (SLO) with a BS 1080 Mute, from Jean-Jacques Roux (FRA) with a perfect FS 10 Tailgrab and from Simon Gruber (ITA) with his unique BS 180 to Wallride BS 180 off.