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| Matt Wilhelm (22 year old, from Chicago) spinning style, bronze medal. Finland’s Martti Kuoppa posted a pair of superb runs (93.40, 88.00) to claim his second consecutive gold medal. Great Britain’s Phil Dolan took home the silver. He has now medaled in his last three appearances at the X Games. He won a bronze last year and a silver in 1999.Mike Vincent, www.hsacentral.com: Today was a hot and sunny day for flatland finals. Ten riders had two runs each. The judges drop the lowest score, which made the competition hot and heavy. With a ton of money on the line, the level of riding was unbelievable. Holding onto the 10th place spot was Alex Jumelin. This French style-cat has competed in many U.S. contests this year. Fast front wheel scuffing and spins are his strong points, but with a hard fall and a few touches he could not advance. German rider Matti Rose rode his way to 9th place. Matti rode well in the preliminaries but had a few problems in the finals. High tech front wheel switches and back wheel spins looked great, but too many touches held him back. All around nice guy and amazing rider, Dan Rigby landed the 8th place spot. Dan has some long links with lots of hitchhiker and backpacker switches, but his feet didn’t always find the bike today. The only Japanese rider to make the cut, York Uno, took 7th. York makes it to the states a lot with the help from his sponsors. He’s the only rider I know of sponsored by a company that makes brakes and yet he rides brakeless. One of the best all-around bike riders, Chad Degroot, took the 6th place money home. Chad is an amazing street/ramp rider. Today he showed his skills on his flatland bike. Back wheel around the bike to darkside backpacker was a crowd pleaser. It’s always great to watch Chad ride flat. Originally from Pennsylvania, Stephen Cerra took 5th place. One word to describe his riding: fast. Runs full of megaspins, mccirles and plenty of high-speed spins. Fourth place went to a disappointed Trevor Meyer. Trevor has been riding a direct-drive gear all year. The crowd seems to love the circus-style tricks. His second run was amazing but just one touch kept him out of the top three. Third went to Matt Wilhelm. The crowd loves Matt because of his high-speed spins. Matt has been stressed out this summer due to his bike sponsor situation. But now with a bronze medal, his phone should be ringing off the hook. The silver medal and 2nd place went to Phil Dolan. Phil had two flawless runs full of around the bike tricks. Phil is one of the smoothest flatlanders out there. Taking the gold and 1st place money again, was Martti Kuoppa. Martti’s first run was just amazing. A flawless run with some of the hardest tricks in the sport. Going into his second run he knew that he had a lock on first. With first place secure, he unleashed a few new tricks. The most impressive was a pedaling wheelie straight up into a time machine spin on the pedals. That boy is good. Now that the X Games are over for these guys, there is a feeling of relief for most. The contest season has slowed down which means everyone can spend quality time at home. You can guarantee that they’ll be home getting ready for next year’s contest season. Can Martti take the gold again next year? You’ll have to come to Philly next year to find out. Congratulations to everyone and we’ll see you next year.
Paul Vail, www.bmxtrix.com: There was little doubt that Martti Kuoppa was going to win. I mean, come on, we are talking about Martti. The weather was hot though and Martti has been fighting spasms in his back. After sitting through the first nine riders there was a question as to whether or not Martti could hold it together to do better than a flawless run turned in by Phil Dolan. Martti helped to clear things up quickly though. One minute and thirty seconds is all it took. A flawless run with tricks that can’t be properly described but we’ll try anyway. The trick list included every signature trick Martti has. Most notably was a long run he began with a cross footed half hiker to half packer, kickflip to half packer to tomahawk out. He followed up with a steamroller kickflip to coasting wheelchair kickflipped to mccircles out. Next came a cliffhanger turbined to barflip to cliffhanger to side squeaks, backwards hitchhiker to coasting e-queak to cross-footed hitchhiker out. He finished up with a solid blender. Time was up, the winner had been determined. Phil Dolan earned his spot in second with a flawless first run. Phil has picked up on the long rolling brakeless tricks and links everything up. He threw down the forward karl cruiser on the pedal to hitchhiker jugled back to a forward karl cruiser on the pedal… to hitchhiker. He also pulled a perfect coasting upside down wheelie/cross-footed rope-a-roni to the coasting backwards rope on the pedals. He has made that trick one of his signature moves that he can throw out at any event. His foot never touched down and up until Martti’s run Phil was sitting on top of the pack. Matt had to earn his spot after a few touches in the first round. He didn’t play things safe though. He started with a full compliment of front wheel spinning and barflip tricks then moved onto his blender straight to upside down pedalling mega-spin to forward time machine out. He then moved on to pull a time machined one handed steam roller variation straight to a no-handed time machined coasting e-squeak. The buzzer sounded and the question was not whether he had won gold, Martti was not to be beat, but if he had managed to get silver or bronze. The score was posted and Matt had edged out Meyer for the number three position. Stephen Cerra looked like he might be up on the podium after his first run. He has picked up a long list of turbined tricks that he can do on both the front and the back wheel. His first run was flawless except for not riding out of his last trick. It was probably the only thing that kept him from being up on the podium this year. His mega spin while kneeling on the seat is just part of the originality that makes Stephen so fun to watch and so good. He also has tomahawks beyond dialed. He gets a fast tomahawk going then pulls both feet off and coasts in a couple of circles no-footed. So close to the medal position but not there yet. |
 Martti Kuoppa. Photo by Paul Vail.  Kuoppa Dolan Wilhelm. Photo by Paul Vail. FLAT 1-Martti Kuoppa 2-Phil Dolan 3-Matt Wilhelm 4-Trevor Meyer 5-Stephen Cerra 6-Chad Degroot 7-York Uno 8-Dan Rigby 9-Matti Rose 10-Alex Jumelin 11.Jorge Gomez 12.Nathan Penonzek 13.Art Thomason 14.Aaron Behnke 15.Ryoji Yamamoto 16.Michael Steingraber 17.Scott Powell 18.Takashi Ito 19.Effraim Catlow 20.Leif Valin |