X-Mas Jam 2010 Retrospective

Photography by Sebastian Hofer
Excerpts by Mihai Bivol, Daniel Prell, Johannes Jacobi, Gabriel Hyden, Max Visser, Dirk Oelmann, Philipp Preuss, Kåre Lindberg, Dominik Wagner, Pawel Wieleba, Adrien Anne & Mark Stamer 

Joey Egan – Bio 540°

»It was my first time at X-Mas Jam, the contest was great and Hamburg is such a crazy town for the night time!«

Mihai Bivol

Philipp Preuss – Safety grab transfer

»This year’s “X-Mas Jam” (my second one) was really a big sursprise to me, because I could experience the whole event (different to 2008 when I spent most the time at the hospital) and I was so impressed how everybody was looking forward to that contest. Especially living in Hamburg, on site, for 3 months now, showed me how people were expecting the craziness, like Germans normally only do right before the Winterclash. I can’t compare it to X-Mas Jams back in the day, but the atmosphere was great, the skating level was on top and everybody had a good day. I think that are reasons why loads of people will visit Hamburg City next year again!«

Philipp Preuss

Mark Stamer – 720° transfer over kicker

»For those who arrived a day before the comp and skated the park on Friday night it was obvious that some crazy skating would be going down the next day. The Grindhouse- and Ignition-team as well as other German riders, skaters from France, Austria and the Netherlands were representing to the fullest. High expectations for Saturday arose.

Throughout the day of the competition, matters seemed to evolve by themselves: the crowd was cheering well, bailed tricks weren’t repeated a hundred times till they’re done and the riders really kicked it off heavily right from the beginning. In particular, the tricks that were thrown down in the Cash-For-Trick-Competition alone recovered the damages of everyones journey in the freezing cold to make it to Hamburg that day.

This years contest turned out great. Its ambience was chilled, but still a lot of action went down.«

Pawel Wieleba

Patrick Tönnies – Safety grab transfer

»If you get old, don’t drink before a competition.«

Gabriel Hyden

Roman Abrate – Disaster backside savannah

»Without saying that this year was the highest level of skating so far, it’s amazing how people still pull out new tricks every year in the same skatepark. Other than that it appeared to be the first X-Mas Jam that could somewhat follow the announced schedule and finish in time. High five to the organizers and the moderate crowd!«

Mark Stamer

Dominik Wagner – Inverted 540°

»The X-Mas Jam in Hamburg became a tradition to me over the years because I have been competing in this event since 1996. Every year after the comp is over, the real Christmas feeling begins for me.After that many years the comp started to get kind of boring, every year there were less people coming and you had to realize that a familiar face or good friend didn’t appear anymore.But this year was different: you could sense a fresh breeze blowing, see a lot of new talents and most importantly to me, a lot of old faces came back. People I haven’t see in ten years. This made this years X-Mas Jam super nice for me!«

Dominik Wagner

Mark Stamer – 450 transfer

»Going to Hamburg in December became natural in the last years. Meeting up with the friends from all over at the end of the year is my number one reason to go. A little bummer every year again is the fact that the park never really changes and it got hard to find new stuff to do. But obviously that doesn’t stop the Frenchies from going crazy. Even if I miss the “X-Mas Jam” feeling from back in the days, it is always a good weekend to end the year. Thanks for your effort Maik! Keep on doing your thing!«

Jojo Jacobi

Adrien Anne – Flip

»The X-Mas Jam is this big thing in our city everybody is looking forward to! It’s something like a mix of tradition and new school style… Every year the skaters are going crazy and pushing the contest to a new level. You can also meet all your skating friends from all over Europe there! My favorite thing to do every year is snaking the street course because that’s the only way somebody can skate the course their own way during the competition.«

Max Visser

Roman Abrate – 900° transfer

»Driving through tons of snow late Thursday night to get to the X-Mas Jam in Hamburg I didn’t know what to expect. Turned out to be a well organized and crazy competition with high standards of blading. Never really been too big of a fan of contests, but I really enjoyed the show and the fact that contests bring people together. I also got to hang out with a lot of good friends which is a big plus in my book. See you all next year, just before Christmas!«

Kåre Lindberg

Judges

»I judged this years X-Mas Jam and it was really tough. The Ams were difficult to judge because there where some really young kids whose had just recently started skating, but the pro-contest was a lot of fun! Great, creative lines from Jojo Jacobi, massive spins from Lucas Landthaler, crazy frensh rollerblading… What else can I say…? Well, Hamburg has a lot of talented shredders!«

Dirk Oelmann

Award ceremony amateurs

»The X-Mas Jam is probably the best German competition – definitely the best afterparty. If you haven’t been there this year – make sure not to miss it next year.«

Daniel Prell

Award ceremony pros

»It wasn’t my first time at the X-Mas Jam in Hamburg. It’s always been a good opportunity to see all the people you won’t see on other events.The first few times I went there was weird, not really organised, they came back on judging errors at the last moment, stuff like that.After one year of absence, I came back and it was a different in a good way. I had fun there, the contest was cool, maybe a bit too tiring. Everybody was dead before the finals after the Cash For Trick Competition which made the finals a bit lower level ’cause of the falls that occurred.But yeah, the Cash For Trick was a great idea and gave a new dimension to the event. It was mad fun.Well, I’ll stop here, but I could talk forever on… It was a sick contest and I can’t wait to be there with all of you guys next year!«

Adrien Anne

Tobias Kotitschke & Toto

Rankings Amateurs:

1. Benni Petry
2. Fedor Simonov
3. Patrick Tönnies
4. Mirco Helbing
5. Felix Kerrines
6. Nico Thielebein
7. Stanislav Bondarik
8. Rene Bruckert
9. Willy Krüger
10. Patrick Krämer

Rankings Pros:

1. Roman Abrate
2. Dominik Wagner
3. Lucas Landthaler
4. Mark Stamer
5. Jeremy Kesler
6. Jojo Jacobi
7. Melvin Siemianowski
8. Denis Wolf
9. Patrick Ridder
10. Adrien Anne 

Supporters:

Grindhouse Skateshop
I-Punkt Skateland e. V.
Deutscher Rollsport und Inline Verband (DRIV) 
Hamburger Volksbank 
Razors Skates 
The Conference

Check out Sebastian Hofers portfolio-website and his flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bastirocks/
http://hofergraphy.com/