Stunt Grand Prix 2014

In early July the annual Stunt Grand Prix stunt riding tournament took place in Poland. For the last few years this tournament has been considered the most prestigious, because it brings together more than fifty athletes. This is possible thanks to its convenient location: Bydgoszcz is practically in the center of Europe, so riders from many countries can get there on their own. Every year unknown stunters of the highest level appear at StuntGP, which adds extra suspense.

The tournament lasts three days. Qualifying (3 min freestyle) selects the best 30. After the semi-final (3 min freestyle) the best 20 athletes remain. The points of the final (3.5 min freestyle) and the semi-final are added together.

As usual, Polish, French, Czech and Japanese riders fought for the podium. Several top-level athletes came from each of these countries. The favorites were Marcin Glowacki, Hiroyuki Ogawa and Kevin Parussini, but they had no room for error, because the top 15 riders could easily overtake them with good runs.

Russia was worthily represented by riders from Khabarovsk, Nikita Pokusai and Denis Rybalko, who traveled 10,000 km and got through qualifying, which is very respectable given the extremely high competition and level of the event! The Belarusians did better. Vitaly Pasevich made the top 10 and took 9th place, becoming the revelation of the tournament. Vladimir Petrov reached the final and took 16th place.

Qualifying

Qualifying took a long time and left many questions about the judging. Judging fifty runs is very hard. The judges tried to weed out the weakest without trying to rank the top 30 objectively, so several strong athletes ended up in the last places.

Semi-final

Semi-final points carry over to the final, so everyone rode at full strength. The leaders tried to score as many points as possible and secure the top places, while the second half of the table competed for a top-20 spot to ride in the final. Martin Kratky from the Czech Republic was a surprise. Martin has always stood out for his technical, varied riding, but this year he added a lot of aggression and speed and took second place, beating the Japanese and French riders. The Japanese weren't riding their own motorcycles, so they knew they couldn't fight for first place. For them the competition among themselves mattered. There are no stunt riding competitions in Japan, so StuntGP gives a chance to determine the best Japanese rider. Although this isn't entirely objective, since Shin Kinoshita rode a Triumph (in Japan Shin rides a 2003–2004 ZX636). Vitaly Pasevich rode great: he added a lot of aggression this season. He did an excellent superman with a ride-out, several quality stoppies and a difficult figure eight. There were many riders with a great individual style who were no less «cool» than the leaders; we will put all the best tricks and moments into a highlight video.

Final

The final was mixed. The first half of the riders rode on dry asphalt, the second in a downpour. Because of this many couldn't show their best, but it didn't bother the leaders much, which proved their top level. The top 10 places remained practically unchanged. All the top athletes did extremely difficult tricks; only aggression and drifts suffered, as they are very hard to do on unevenly wet asphalt.

Results

Comparing riders is very hard! Under this year's judging system, the results table looks as shown in the picture. The judges announced that a high pace and technical, varied tricks were required. Crashes at a high pace are not penalized. Nevertheless, questions remained about some placings and runs!

Unfortunately, the final took place in a heavy downpour, and we couldn't film all the runs, so we decided to post the best of three runs of each rider who got through qualifying.