Mind the GAP report

Tags: competition, dominic swagemakers, edwin wiering, event, hertogenbosch, holland, jeremy kessler, jojo jacobi, mind the gap, romain godenaire, show, steve swain, warren digne

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Last weekend the first round of Mind the GAP 2009 toke place in Den Bosch (the Netherlands). Over here you can read and see what happened.

Mind The Gap… There couldn’t be a better name for Sven Boekhorst’s show-event series. A vert quarter as start ramp, a big jump with a gap in-between and the newest addition, a perfect disaster rail spot. The perfect setup for great competitions and shows in front of a big “mostly non skating” crowd. Since the beginning of MTG I always wanted to come over and check it out. But somehow it never worked. This time Sven invited me to finally be part of it and for sure I didn’t think twice about it. 7 hours in the train from Berlin to Hertogenbosch and there we go.

Mind the Gap

This MTG Qualification was part of a Hip Hop festival in the very city centre. The biggest Dutch rap acts hyped up the crowd and right in-between their concerts, the MTG competition was held. Best place for a show like this and loads of young people watching guaranteed. Sven invited some of the best Dutch, French and Belgium Rollerbladers and the result of it was a high level show. Two qualification rounds and a finale. And after every round the gap became 1 meter farther and also the rail disaster became more difficult from round to round. In the gap between the ramps there was a Red Bull DJ playing which gave the show its final touch.

After the first round we cut down to 8 riders and then again for the finales down to 5. Since there was some good prize money everybody was juiced and ready to give his best. In the end we had Warren Digne (France), Edwin Wieringh (Netherlands), Romain Godenaire (France) Jeremy Kessler (Belgium) and Steve Swain (United Kingdom) for the finale. Every rider got 5 turns. 5 tries for the perfect spin, grind, grind line. Oh… the gap between the jump and the landing was 5 meters. Showtime! Warren Digne got 5th place with a smooth line including tech and style. Edwin got 4th with his banger style, always giving full power and risk. He couldn’t lace his disaster 540 true Pornstar, which is the reason for not being top 3. 3rd place goes to Stephen Swain who did big spins as always and a nice disaster 450 bs Royal. Jeremy Kessler also gave everything with a big Cork 900, disaster 450 mutegrab to royal, 540 in the quarter and another disaster grind in the end. Power line and second place for him. First place goes to Romain from France. This guy is winning almost everything lately. The biggest monster spins and also some tech disaster grinds. Hammer time and obviously the first place again. Congrats!

The competition turned out great and the crowd had a good time watching it. It was good to see so many people excited about Rollerblading. We def. need more events like this!

After skating and building down the ramps we went to the last concerts and the afterparty. Good times with good people. Thanks Sven and everybody I could hang out with. Great memories. I will be back! And everybody else should try to check it out!

www.mtg-contest.com – SEE YOU THERE!!

- Jojo Jacobi

Photos: Dominic Swagemakers

Mind the Gap