Another year went by and the competition was over before you could blink. What was spectacular this year was the multitude of riders from across Europe and other nations who were interested in coming to skate. Never before have we received so much attention.
It seems every year the popularity of the "Bulgarian Inline Halfpipe Championships" grows and grows- most of us know the comp as "Montana Comp". Why is this humble competition that had no prize money, which is held in a small city in Bulgaria and virtually unknown by the local Bulgaria media so popular within the world community of inline halfpipe? It’s hard to give a simple answer. There are many factors that go to making this competition unique. Having visited many other comps I think what makes this comp truly unique is the sense of "community". All the inline halfpipe riders are together for 3 days and it makes for a wonderful atmosphere. Instead of a competition you feel like you are in a festival. Everyone mingles talks, eats together, stays in the same hotels and of course skates; there is no distinction between amateur or pro- everyone is respected.
The most common comment I hear after every year is "I will be back again next year!"... and many do come back the following year or regret no being able to come back. I know for sure they tell their friends and their friends tell friends. The lineup this year was too impressive with riders from Spain, Russia, Germany, England, France, San Marino and Brazil.
This year we pushed our luck with the weather. Although the whole week prior to event there was sun, the weekend weather prediction was for nasty storms. This was on my mind the whole time and I made plans and counter plans a few hundred times. I changed format for the comps many times; changed times, change runs but in the end I was not sure what I was going to do until the moment came.
During the week prior to the event teams began to arrive, the earliest to arrive where the German team with 5 people in total. They were joined by Cesar Andrade from Brazil. They all stayed in my place for a day or so before they went to Montana to start practicing or whether to drink and party, I was not sure. The English team arrived on Thursday and quickly went to practice in Montana. Then the rest of the riders from San Marino, France, Russia and Spain. It was a small logistic nightmare shifting all these athletes from Sofia to Montana and I was so glad to have Pavel and Svilen helping out with transportation. Without these guys we would have had serious problems. All week they were driving back and forth between Sofia and Montana transporting riders. The last to arrive was Marco De Santi on late Friday night; he arrived around 1am in Montana.
By Friday, the DISASTER members had organised the park nicely. By the time Arni and I arrived in the park there was music, banners were up, the benches set up, security posted and no alcohol in the park! The police had stopped all alcohol which was great to see. As usual the Under 16 year’s old competition took place and everything went smoothly. It was a nice little battle between Stefan from Montana and Yuli from Oriahovitza. Yuli who is 8 years old can drop from the 4mt coping and also the channel and although impressive he did not have the same run as Stefan who the judges believed to be a bit better on the day.
After the kids competition was over full practice started. Everyone had a couple of hours practice under the lights and we had a nice evening session which finished around 10pm. After this everyone went back to hotels, restaurants and the party that started somewhere and ended somewhere else.
Saturday was a glorious day- sunny and beautiful but the formal weather forecast from the airport was bad- severe storm coming around 6-7pm. So after a few debates we decided to move the competition earlier and we did the qualifications for AMATEUR and OPEN competition during the day time and we even managed to squeeze the finals too for the AMATEUR competition before 6pm. It’s hard to put into words the skating levels and tricks. The standards for AMATEUR and OPEN were amazingly high. In the AM comp we had Stefan Vassilev and Vesko Zahariev once again doing battle. The judges were almost split in the decision, by a few points the comp went to Vesko but the results would be turn in the OPEN comp when Stefan beat Vesko.
Just as predicted at 7pm when we had finished all comps and even managed a BIG AIR COMP whcih Alex eastwood won over Marco De Santi just before the storms dropped. A huge hail storm came out of nowhere and lucky many of us were on our way to the hotel by this stage. This did not hamper the sense of fun. We were all in the spirit to have fun and we celebrated first at the pizza place which became party-central thanks to Cesar reorganizing the Pizza place and then we went to a piano bar. Some people partied well into 6-7am. The effects of this night would have severe repercussions the next day for the OPEN FINALS.
We all agreed to meet 2pm on Sunday to start the OPEN FINALS. The only competition left to finish. Unfortunately many of the athletes had partied a bit too hard and could not compete. A decision needed to be made. The results from the qualifications were very clear and there was almost no chance that results could change in the finals. To ask the riders to compete would be to torture them so I decided to use the qualification results as final results and instead do Best Trick and session comp. This worked out fine with everyone as it removed the stress of competing.
To my great surprise all riders eventually showed up and everyone had a great last session. Ceremonies were done, medals given and then once again the final parties took place.
Although the level was so high in this competition the first three riders for the OPEN Competition were:
1st Marco De Santi, Brazil
2nd Cesar Andrade, Brazil
3rd Rich Parker, England
and
Best Trick was won by Leonid Kamburov the Red-Bull sponsored rider from Russia.
The AM Competition Results were:
1st Vesselin Zahariev, Bulgaria
2nd Stefan Vasilev, Bulgaria
3rd Johannes Zenk, Germany
On Monday, a hired bus arrived early in the morning around 9 am and I was in complete surprised to see all athletes ready on time! The bus took as slowly to Sofia, the weekend had ended with the true spirit of the “Montana Comp”. Arriving at Sofia airport we said goodbyes to the guys leaving and promised each other to see each other in Rotterdam in 5 days time.
The “Montana Comp” spirit had survived once again. Everyone who was there will never forget the fun, the skating, the smiles and the warm feeling from being around other inline halfpipe skaters. A competition made only for us by us. We hope to see all our friends next year again.
Last words- thanks to everyone who did their best to make this competition a success: Arni, Hrisi, Kiro, Pavel, Niki, Vesko, Bobi, Stefan, Antonio, Mitko, EMo, Paio, Dido, Svilen, Lori (Montana), Lori (my wife) and also Boyana's Team who did the filming and photography. Thanks to all fans and supporters you make the comp special!!
Marco
Part II... the trip to Rotterdam coming next. |
