Article by Zebastian Cassel
On Saturday we got up around 9 am, got some breakfast and got picked up by the chairman of the skatepark. He drove us to the demo location which is Linköping’s biggest shopping mall called Ikano-Huset. When we arrived there at 11 am there was already plenty of activities going on and the crowd was building up.
The mini-ramp were already set up and some local kids were shredding it in between the demos. Some companies had also set up booths and were showing products and one of the worlds best flatland BMXers was doing shows as well. Richard Karlsson, Joachim Wall and Joe Atkinson and me did a big demo at 1 pm with some flat spins and tech trick and then we headed to the park for preparations of the comp.
After setting up some boxes and banners we were ready to let people into the park and a lot of Swedish rollerbladers had gathered outside. In total we had about 70 rollerbladers competing both junior and seniors for the prize money of 500 €. After a quick warm-up session we launched the junior heats in which some pretty sick tricks were landed. For example this one kid laced a perfect big 900° on the launch-box. After the junior-division heats we jumped straight to senior qualifications and Joe Atkinson and Joachim Wall showed us some really badass tricks. After the judges had been discussing we announced the finals and junior finals would go down first. Seven minutes later the junior final was over and a series of amazing tricks had been done. For example Jonathan Kinnemar did a big disaster soulgrind on the kinked quarter pipe and Andreas Blom laced a perfect long true porn along the regular quarter pipe.
Senior finals was amazing as well with mind blowing stunts and tech skating. Andreas Johansson (2nd place) did a high topsoul stall on the wall ride and tried a crazy spine-extension transfer but never really laced it. Joe Atkinson laced all kinds of stunts including a sick transfer to soulgrind and an amazing wall ride to true topacid on the kinked quarter pipe.
Overall the competition was a success and a lot of Swedish rollerbladers showed up to support and have a good time and we, the organizers, are stoked and hope to make this an annual event and make it grow even more. A big thanks to our sponsors Razors, Hedonskate Sweden and Hangaren Hot Sport Center. Stay tuned for more updates during the week!
-Zebastian Cassel
Results:
Junior Division
- Jonathan Kinnemar
- Jacob Johansson
- Tim Fredriksson
- Andreas Blom
- Tobias Hellstrand
- Alex Heikka
- Adrian Jeresta
Senior Division
- Joe Atkinson – 250 €
- Andreas Johansson – 50 €
- Rickard Karlsson
- Joachim Wall
- Zebastian Cassel
- Robin Karhle
- Gabriel Gök
K2 Best Trick Award
Joe Atkinson (200 €)
