Belarus Championship 2010

The Stuntex team went to Raubichi specifically to film the runs of all the athletes and give you the chance to see the best pro riders from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania in action. Seven hours on the road flew by. The Minsk highway is the best road in Russia we have ever driven on. Already a few days before the tournament, many professionals and amateurs had arrived for the stunt meet. The riding area was big enough for everyone to practice. The tournament took place on Saturday and included the following programs:

Qualifying:

stoppie for distance after a 30-meter run-up; timed wheelie, as slow as possible; coaster wheelie – a wheelie with the clutch pulled in; timed static (on the spot) burnout, as long as possible; circle battle — all riders start doing circle wheelies at the same time, and the last one remaining wins.

Men's freestyle — the climax of the tournament and the most spectacular show. The best athletes from qualifying showed everything they were capable of in 5 minutes. Each rider was given 30 seconds to warm up. The athletes showed great dedication and a good pace. Red Bull was, as always, magnificent in circles, and his power wheelies were especially cool: high speed, superb position changes, excellent bike control.

Arunas from Lithuania showed a restless, dynamic style. He did several great circle wheelies and a superb jump (be sure to watch it). Igor Kiselev rode in his own style: everything was precise and clean, and his no-hand circle wheelie was perfect. But a very limited number of tricks and no combos kept him from placing high.

Virgis did several great combos and, at the end, a superb slow cross. «Kosmos» was memorable for a quality no-hand stoppie. «Seks», unfortunately, didn't finish his routine: he ran out of gas. Mazhor, a young and very promising rider from Moscow, started aggressively and fast and did dynamic, stylish circles, but couldn't handle the high pace and made a mistake on a stoppie mid-routine. His crash was the hardest of the tournament.

Results:

In the craziest trick contest, the memorable ones were Foma, who threw his motorcycle into a ditch, Nikita Podolya, who did a striptease, and of course Janis, who did a circle wheelie in a coaster and took first place; Igor Kiselev did almost the same, but he entered the circle with the engine off and turned it on before completing a full revolution. There were also tandem performances. Nobody could compete with Misha and Olya, since they were the only real tandem. The pair performed excellently, showing several quality and dangerous tricks.

The program included a fun battle contest in which athletes knocked each other off. All participants had to sit on the tank and drift. The last one «left alive» was the winner! Overall the tournament was a success. The only thing to pay attention to is organization and rules of conduct for athletes during the competition programs (qualifying, freestyle, craziest trick). During qualifying attempts, some riders were warming up and thereby distracting the athlete making the attempt. There were inexperienced guys at the tournament, and because of their colleagues' disrespectful behavior their attempts failed.

During the freestyle it would be good to require athletes to signal the start of their run, for example by raising a hand. Sometimes it was unclear whether an athlete had started his routine or was still warming up. During the craziest trick contest, riders moving chaotically around the area made it impossible to watch and film all the runs properly. We are sure all the comments will be taken into account, and the next tournament will be at a higher level. We will also step up our photo and video quality.

This contest was our first and a practice run for us; we ran into some problems and couldn't film some riders' runs properly. Next spring, look out for a full report on the stunt meet with a great highlight video. Janis's and Crazy D's runs will come later. And, of course, the best moments of the whole fest.