MTB Semi Final
Seeing dirt jumps in the heart of a big city like Chengdu, in China, is impressive enough as it is: add to that some of the best riders in the discipline and you get an eye-catching event, gathering extreme sports lovers and general public alike.
The uncertain weather today in Chengdu may have slowed down the rhythm a bit, but it sure didn’t affect the riders’ motivation to give it all they’ve got on the ton of sculpted dirt built especially for them. As soon as the rain finished, everything was put into place to give the riders the opportunity to express themselves on their big bikes.
16 pro-riders were on site today for a chance to make it into tomorrow’s finals and battle for a sought-after spot on the podium. At the end of the day, it was Mehdi Gani (FRA), familiar face at the FISE, who finished on the highest spot on the leaderboard. Once more, Medhi showed the extend of his skills by performing a series of tricks and combos with style throughout the whole course: Backflip tuck no-hander on the first drop, Backflip barspin to tuck-no-hander on the 1st jump, tailwhip onto the hip and barspin out, wrapping things up nicely with a cork 720 on the last jump of the course. With a well-executed run like this one, it’s no surprise he finished first of these semi-finals.
Just behind him on the score sheet was last years’ winner of the FISE World Chengdu, UK’s Daryl Brown. Truckdriver, 360 tuck no hander, tuck-no-hander to barspin, and an impressive 360 triple barspin on the last jump were plenty to convince the judges that he deserved the second place on the leaderboard.
Third highest scoring rider today was Eric Walenta, who performed a smooth, consistent run with a lot of variations and well executed tricks, from top to bottom.
Mountain biking will be back again tomorrow to decide which of the 12 riders who made it in the finals will bring home the win. Stay tuned on FISE.tv for the live broadcast of this action-packed event!
Check all the results here : http://www.fise.fr/fr/fise-world-series/fise-world-china-chengdu-2015/resultats
