Today the first official highlight clip went live:
Vienna, April 4th, 2011 – Around 70 riders from 15 nations gathered on the city square in Vienna this past weekend to try and take the throne at the 6th edition of the Vienna Air King. This year, the contest in Vienna was once again the kick-off event for the Freeride Mountain Bike (FMB) World Tour. Never has Vienna seen more high-profile riders at one competition and the level of tricks showed that during the 2011 season we can expect the bar to be raised. Once again, Sam Pilgrim (UK) prevailed against the competition and takes home the second victory in a row and third overall from the Vienna Air King. Even though Yannick Granieri (FRA/2. place) and Greg Watts (USA/3. place) tried everything to take the crown from Pilgrim – in the end nobody was able to push him off the throne. Final Results are:
1. Sam Pilgrim 89.84 2. Yannick Granieri 86.67 3. Greg Watts 82.34 4. Martin Soderstrom 79.50 With his best run consisting of a flip table off the drop leading into a flip tuck no hander then a 720 followed by a 360 tailwhip for 92.67 points, Sam's overall score was 89.84. Yannick Granieri placed second after barely making it into the final. Greg Watts followed up in third riding with a lot of pain following his dislocated shoulder in yesterday's best trick contest, but still managed to throw down some great runs.
Sam Pilgrim, winner of the 2011 Vienna Air King
About 120,000 visitors overall strolled over the city square in Vienna and were not disappointed at the first event of the FMB World Tour. During the finals on Sunday, the riders pulled tricks out of their sleeves that not only the spectators were impressed with. Judges and the riders themselves all agreed that the level of tricks was higher this year than it had ever been. Obviously, the level of tricks at a contest grows in direct relation to the jury’s demands – which is why Sam Pilgrim had to give all he had to make it to the first place during the three runs out of which two counted towards the result.
Sam Pilgrim threw down a sick trick at every jump and was able to convince the jury with his consistently excellent performance. From underneath the Red Bull arch he shot into the line with a backflip tabletop and followed it up with a backflip nohand. Next up was a 720 and to finish up a super clean 360 tailwhip.
After Yannick Granieri only qualified for the finals because Andi Wittmann could not ride, a smooth third run won the French athlete second place. He entered the course with a truck driver off the starting tower followed by a backflip tailwhip at the second jump and the next 360 was swiftly trumped by a 360 tailwhip on the last hit.
A truck driver was also Greg Watts first trick, which he followed with a backflip barspin. Add a 360 x-up to that along with a backflip tailwhip and you have a third place - even if Greg was in pain from a banged up shoulder after crashing during the Panasonic Best Trick Competition.
Martin Soderstrom, the Vienna Air King winner 2009 had to be satisfied with a fourth place this year.
The Panasonic Best Trick Competition is famous for the unbelievable tricks that the world’s best riders show when they meet in Vienna once a year. And so it was that you heard the sound of jaws dropping even over the music at the things you can do with a mountain bike.
In the end, Andreu Lacondeguy convinced the jury with an extremely clean double backflip that he made look completely effortless. His runs during the qualifiers may not have gotten him into the finals but he rocked the entire Best Trick jam session
Andreu, winner of Best Trick took home prize money plus a Panasonic 3D camcorder.
Tyler McCaul pulled a never-seen-before 360 double downside whip out of the bag and was rewarded with second place. A 360 tailwhip at the step down landed Martin Soderstrom safely on third place.
French rookie Mehdi Gani surprised everyone this year when he rode from the pre-qualifiers straight to fifth place. At the same time he also won a wild card for the legendary Red Bull District Ride for which the first four riders already had a ticket because of their 2010 FMB World Tour ranking.
Already during Friday’s pre-qualifying it was clear that the riders did not hibernate over the winter months; aside from Mehdi Gani there were several other young talents. Russian Pavel Alyokihin Vishnevi is definitely one of them – which he demonstrated when he took first place for the pre-qualifiers. Sunday night then it was clear from which position the riders will start into the biking season and FMB World Tour 2011:
1. Sam Pilgrim (GBR/NS Bikes) 2. Yannick Granieri (FRA/Commencal) 3. Greg Watts(USA/HARO) 4. Martin Söderström (SWE/Specialized) 5. Mehdi Gani (FRA/Probikeshop) 6. Sam Reynolds (GBR/DMR Bikes) 7. Tomas Genon (BEL/UMF) 8. Szymon Godziek (POL/Dartmoor Bikes) 9. Bartek Obukowicz (POL/NS Bikes) 10. Pavel Vishnevi (RUS/Blackmarket Bikes) 11. Antony Rocci (FRA/Rick the World) 12. Tomas Zejda(CZE/Dartmoor Bikes) 13. Jakub Vencl (CZE/Rose Versand) 14. Niki Leitner (AUT/YT Industries) 15. John Alm Högman (SWE/Scott Bikes)
Finally it is safe to say that the Vienna Air King as well as the ARGUS Bike Festival was once again a complete success. Around 120,000 spectators visited the festival and enjoyed the hot weather as much as hot bike action.
Yannick Granieri
Next up on the FMB World Tour is the Rocket Air next weekend in Switzerland
Sam had an amazing few runs and deserved the win there. Pretty gutted to see Vishnevi so far down though, I've seen in the VVC Force films he has the tricks to do a lot better in comps.
Very,very well done Sam,especially on a relativley new frame like the N.S Majesty,top class frame,second to none rider.Long live the Union Jack.And here's to many,many more victories to come.PROPS.Big time.
Isn't that a 360 double downside whip at 0:50. Normally 360 Downside Whips look more like decades than anything, he definitely crosses over the frame mid spin (bike does two rotations relative to him and he does one relative to ground but their spinning in opposite directions making it a downsidewhip) Also Triple Tailwhip at 0:19 and Backflip Doublewhip at 0:45. That's some crazy stuff, catching up with BMX in terms of Gnar!
no canadians made finals pimp. Sam is killing it this year. First white style and now Vienna. Can't wait to see him really blow up this year. Ns made a smart move signing him
i know that but not in reputation. Diamond back makes mediocre bike nothing to special happening there. Ns makes amazing frames and pretty good parts too, so it only makes sense that he would want to be with a company that can get him more exposure and a better bike
oh yeah, no doubt it's a great move, but do you not think he'd still be shit hot on a diamondback? I mean he was mint last year and he's only young. Could just be natural progression rather than the bike?
Im not saying that the bike he was riding was crap, it was good because it wasnt any stock parts. But in general diamond back makes average bikes. The thing that bothers me most with diamond backs is the geo on their frames. It just looks akward to me. The bike has a bit to do with it because i find it odd that in the 3 or 4 months he has been signed to NS he has litteraly doubled his skill level and trick bag. Now maybe im wrong but i strongly beleive that the ns bike is helping him a bit.
The NS Bike is helping for sure! I talked to him personally when he was visiting Aptos a few weeks ago! Says the geo is way better for dirt jumping etc! Sam is a mad man, but i cant wait to see some Cam McCaul, Semenuk, Montgomery in the mix as well! Going to be a sweet year!
In case you missed it Diamondback has a sick team this year with Kelly McGarry, Eric Porter, Billy Lewis and Kyle Thomas working on testing the new slopestyle, dirt jump and DH rigs. We announced it here
For sure, I wasn't saying that I wouldn't buy diamondback or ride the hell out of one, but rather the geo on the NS frame is much easier to do tough tricks with. Direct from Blake Sampson and Sam Pilgrim. They both said too much slack on the current dirt jump model of Diamondback. Best of luck to the new Diamondback team though!
woah, I wasn't even arguing anything, I was just stating that although Sam is now on NS, Diamondback still has a couple of sick slope riders. I agree Sam is better on the NS, they make a better dj bike no argument there. But as of last year they didn't have a decent slope bike, which is why we saw Martin riding a Cove slope bike while he was riding for NS. I think Sam is a great fit for NS, and Kelly and Porter are probably better for Diamondback....
i agree with all the stuff saying that ns has been a big part of why hes getting better, but i dont get it like how does different geo effect your riding ?
the truth is in one country you can have much or just a little different weather over the year than in others. That makes you overally feel different. Feel different long term-ride different(from own experience)
jobohobo you really need to read comments, i will summarize what has been said though. Sam thinks the ns frames are better for dirtjumping, he also thinks its better for tricks than his diamondback, and also he said the dianmondback frame was to slack
This competition was great because all of the riders are really friendly with each other and aren't especially bothered by winning, they just want to have fun
Sam pulled this win after the whitestyle last year too.....he destroys in europe.......shame he can't piece it together for the american comps the same way.
It's because European comps are generally just smooth dirt jumps, in north American comps it's slopestyle with rougher dirt, bigger jumps and drops and technical features. Sam is a bit hack let's be honest. He throws down some crazy bangers but watch how he lands, no where near as smooth as Soderstrom for example.
no its because he was judged totally unfairly at Crankworx, to the point where even the crowd booed at his low score when it came in!! Did you not watch it on live stream?
He said that he couldn't put together a solid run in quali and didn't got through... Wierd stuff if you ask me, win best trick one day and don't make it into finals next day. Only explanation I can find is that he celebrated his win a bit too much
IMO he got what he deserved, you can't win comps by pulling the same tricks again and again. I mean, why would you do a 360 whip to another 360 whip and end the run with a 360 double whip, when you can do so many different 360 combinations and other stuff.
Congrats to Sammy, he seems to be killing it this year!
Söderström does only three tricks in comps, and been doing them for 2 years now... 360, teilwhip and sometimes barspin. You can't expect to win with run which was quite ok in 2008 when people are throwing insane combos nowadays. Watch his runs, you know what im talking about.
Not a single one of those top ten competed in Rampage finals, which suggests that none of them are actually freeriders, just dirt jumpers and park riders. I'm not really sure how this can be considered a freeride mountain bike event with no mountain and no freeriders...
We'll see a lot of different courses this year! Not just str8 dirt jumps! This year is going to be rad! Add a little Cam McCaul, Semenuk, and Montgomery to the mix and we have a season! Its going to get nasty!
((((( im so mad right now 
