Royal start to the season

On April 4 and 5, the best dirt jumpers from Europe, the USA and Australia celebrated the start of the mountain bike season 2009 at Vienna Air King in Vienna, Austria. The 19-year-old Swede Martin Söderström won the ‘Vienna Air King 2009’ title with a perfect third final run.

The conditions for Vienna Air King on April 4 and 5 were barely beatable: a brilliant blue sky, a perfectly shaped dirtline, designed by Vienna local and course designer Andi Brewi, and the biggest bike festival in Austria made the weekend a perfect start to the season. With the fourth Vienna Air King, the ARGUS Bike Festival was a veritable crowd magnet, drawing almost 100,000 spectators. The riders present really threw themselves into it in the three final runs on Sunday, only showing their best tricks.

Following two messed up runs, Martin Söderström was shouldering huge pressure, yet in his last run the high flyer from last year perfected his line, which he had started and stopped twice before. A clean 360 at the step down, followed by a double tailwhip at the first double, a 360 nosedive on the second and a bar spin on the third double, as well, a 540 on the quarterpipe secured him first place, 2500 euros in cash and a Panasonic camera.

Amir Kabbani (GER) came in a close second – his run was also jam-packed with first-class tricks: a no foot can on a step down, backflip no-hander, 360 barspin to x-up, tailwhip and again as a final barspin on the quarter secured him 1800 euros and a Panasonic camera as well. The third spot on the podium went to Paul Basagoitia from the USA: a 360 at the step down, a backflip, a 360 x-up one foot and two tailwhips on the last double and on the quarter characterized his best run of the three final runs. The Kona Clump team rider was particularly lucky in winning the award for Best Trick and a top-three placing, which doesn’t happen every day.

Both British riders of extra class, Sam Pilgrim and Lance McDermott, followed with tricks like flairs in the quarter (both), a backflip no hand (Sam), a backflip on a step down or a frontflip on the first double (Lance) to win fourth and fifth place respectively. And it was Lance, who on Saturday at the PANASONIC Best Trick Competition raised a few murmurs from the crowd when he performed a flair lookdown in the quarter.