Saturday, September 4, 2010

Vincent Perraud...

... won the "culture" category on the Red Bull Illume photo contest!!!
Yes, one of my best friend and best photographer Vincent Perraud (the dude who followed me in my Austin adventure for one month) just won the biggest photo competition in the world in the "culture" category with this incredible shot!!! I'm so happy for him!!!



(Via Red Bull): Le Red Bull Illume avait lieu ce mardi à Dublin, en Irlande dans la grandiose enceinte du Trinity College. Cette compétition récompensant les meilleurs photographes d’action et d’aventure du monde a suscité un réel engouement de la part d’un public venu en nombre assister à la remise des prix. Et si c’est l’Américain Chris Burkhard qui a remporté la palme de la meilleure photo toutes catégories confondues, avec son cliché impressionnant de Peter Mendria domptant les vagues sur la cote ouest du Chili, le Français Vincent Perraud n’a pas démérité en remportant le prix de la meilleure photo de culture.

Passionné de BMX, Vincent a été contraint de s’arrêter pendant plus d’un an à l’âge de 21 ans, suite à une blessure au genou. Pour rester au plus près du vélo, il s’est ainsi mis à la photo, se trouvant rapidement un talent caché pour l’objectif. Rapidement ses photos trouvent preneurs au sein de la presse spécialisée et il se consacre pleinement à cette nouvelle passion, avec un certain succès. C’est donc une suite logique à sa progression que ce prix remporté grâce à son cliché pris à Tallinn en 2008, dans un bus blindé de riders et de BMX. Comme pour souligner un peu plus l’aspect très convivial de ce sport pas comme les autres…

2010 Nora Cup

I wanna go there so bad!!!
www.ridebmx.com


Korea day Three!


Pretty good day yesterday in Chuncheon, Korea! No rain this time!
It was actually qualification day for every class and discipline.
I woke up and took a Massive breafast with all the riders which is always pretty wild and finishes with food fight all the time...
We eventually went to the contest area.
36 riders entered the Bmx flatland contest... including 30 top japanese pros... Since they only took 12 riders to the final and we only had 2 minutes run, It was not the time to miss your run. Viki, Moto and I basically had no touches run so we made the top 3.
Moto is seriously getting better and better... Insanity!
I eventually went to watch my friend ride the Park contest. Tom Dugan a.k.a Dang Dang killed the jump box with an Astronaut 3sixty that sent him to the 4th spot. Top 3 where contest riders (flair whip and shit), not my cup of tea...
After the contest ended, I went to downton Chuncheon with Dang dang and JF to check out what was up there... Not much but a KFC ahahah
After that I went to play some video games with some homies and had some beers. Tom played some MGMT songs on the hotel piano, good times! I was definitely tired afterwards and final is today so I went to sleep like a real athlete :)
I'll let you know what's up with the final today!!!
Peace!!!
Nice story: On the way back from the contest to the hotel, Viki didn't see a tree's root on the road, cased his front wheel on it and frontflipped full speed over his bar and exploded his knee... Hope he still can ride today...

Tom Dugan Can play Piano!


Chuncheon Downton a saturday night? Not much going on!


Viki Gomez X Tom Dugan Knee


The ghetto in the ghetto: KFC in Chuncheon!!

Qualification results!


Final is gonna be awesome tomorrow!

Friday, September 3, 2010

Korea Day Two

Once again that was one long day!
I woke up this morning pretty early and the sun was shining.
I got to the event whose really fucking crazy, I couldn't wait to practice, but 2 hours later, a huge storm came down and ruined the biggest part of the day... We just chilled around with Viki and JF.
The sun came back at 4 p.m so we had two hours of practice (sun goes down at 6 in Korea). The floor is the best floor I have ever ridden in my whole life, so the level of practice was pretty high! I eventually rode some ramps with Akira. It was really difficult to ride because there is like 100 percent of humidity there. You move your arm and you're all sweaty!
We eventually went back to the hotel to get ready for the opening dinner with all the athlete. It was really an awesome dinner!
Tomorrow is the qualification so I might get some sleep now!

View from my hotel room this morning!


Viki at Practice


Dinner is served!


BMX, Skate, and Inline Skating... One love!


And if you were wondering if it's one big event or not, here are some pro I saw today:
Moto Sasaki
Viki Gomez
JF Boulianne
York Uno
Schinichi Kiba "Russia"
Yoshihiro Shinde
Takahiro Ikeda
Tomokazu Morinaga
Keisuke Tanigamwa
Akira Okamura
Akihiko Takahashi
Chad DeGroot
... and many more

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Korea Day 0 and 1


Day 0 suits perfect cause nothing hapenned, could aswell've been the worst day in my life. Yeap there were a typhoon in Seoul so our plane got stuck in Paris airport for 9 hours. We finally took off and land 11 hours after in the Incheon airport. We eventually took a 3 hours bus to the hotel... 23 hours trip anyone?
Nevermind, this seems to be one big event, the organisation was waiting for us at the hotel and treated us with some great Korean style dinner.
After that Viki and I felt jetlagged so we took sleeping pills to pass out so this morning we feel brand new!
I just crossed so many Japanese rider in the hotel this morning (Moto, Ikeda, York...) so It' gonna be pretty fun. Let's see what hapen today at the practice!
Keep in touch.

Landed!!


Viki just before he gets some Korean dinner


Breakfast with Viki and JF Boulianne my good homie from Canada!!


Just so you know: (Seoul Local Time)
FRIDAY: Practice from 1:30 pm to 5:00
SATURDAY: Prelims: 3:00 pm
SUNDAY: Final 4:30 pm

Just Landed in Korea...


...with Viki! And we re tired!!!