Mind the Gap 2009: finals won by David Sizemore
Photos by Dominic Swagemakers.
Last sunday the third edition of Mind the Gap was held in the city centre of Rotterdam in The Netherlands. This edition of Mind the Gap was bigger and better than the 2 previous finals held in Rotterdam. 17 qualified rollerbladers impressed the judges and the audience with technical grinds and huge spins over DJ Jameszoo, who was on the turntables in the 5 meter big gap.
Mind the Gap was part of the Your World “city games”. On sunday the commercial street “Coolsingel” banned al cars. Several thousand visitors experienced different demo’s and shows. During the final round everybody was focused on Mind the Gap, spectators lined up over a length of 60 meters. The excitement was in air
The 5 skaters who qualified for the final round were hyped and all had a shot at the cash money prize of Euro 555,-
Giorgio Oehlers from Rotterdam, 2nd place in 2008, did not deliver in the final round like he did in the prelims. He became 4th. 1st place winner of 2007 Yuri Botelho from Spain had some smooth runs. Unfortunately his 2009 contest ended on a 5th place.Rotterdam local Martin van Drunen is wellknown for his smooth en technical style of rollerblading. He showed the judges clean spins and grinds deserving a 3th place, he did not go big enough for gold or silver.
American David Sizemore and Frenchman Romain Godenaire were still in the running. Romain goes very powerfull and explosive, David flows and executes his tricks smooth and very technical. A very hard task for the belgian and 2 dutch judges. Romain could not convince the judges enough he became 2nd. The style and high level tricks done by David Sizemore troughout the whole final earned the honour and biggest trophee of Mind the Gap 2009.
The organisation is very proud with another great edition of Mind the Gap and the great atmosphere created during the city games. Thanks go out to all the rollerbladers, spectators, Your World, 1OAK and Rollerblade. Without these Mind the Gap would not be Mind the Gap.
Special shout out to winner David Sizemore!
Some Clips of the top 5 Riders:
Results
1. David Sizemore, USA
2. Romain Godenaire, France
3. Martin v. Drunen, NL
4. Giorgio Oelhers, NL
5, Yuri Botelho, Spain
Thanks Sven Boekhort / Team TRS.
Tags: david sizemore, mind the gap
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:17 am
The video clip/edit doesn’t show what kind of rotation/air did D.Sizemore to win (beside his fantastic disasters on the rail)… Does someone know anything about that ?
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:48 am
[...] More: Mind the Gap 2009: finals won by David Sizemore [...]
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:03 am
yeaaaaahhh!!! Martinnnnn …..congratulations! cuidao eh! cuidao!
guerrerosss representtt!
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
so fucking ugly skating, so fucking ugly kommercial setup
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 am
Mind the Gap is a good contest in holland to show people what rollerblading is!
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Fidget stop hating man!
Mind the Gap promotes agressive rollerblading to the bigger audience, trying to get people on rollerblades. For the future of our sport!
It is so easy to hate on it, any effort from your side?!?!?!?
You should have been there supporting this kind of events
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
the edit does not show all the tricks in the finals,
so you you cant justice who or what trick won,
Right now JK is workin on a really nice edit, with all the runs
included, untill that one is finished, we need to settle with this edit.
the mind the gap finals where amazing,
tricks were stupidly big,
sizemore is the correct winner
(stop hating! its so easy!)
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
RB making stirring up the norm lately!
great job david! wheres my cut….
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
“to show people what rollerblading is”, someone says
but rolling cannot be reduced to a quarterpipe, a huge launch box and two banks with handrails.
this contest only shows the more “masculine” kind of rolling, it excludes style, creativity, freedom of rolling around, making lines, mixing between small obstacles and bigger obstacles, making rolling an aestestic interesting art form.
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I agree with Fidget on that one!
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
congradts to martin and gergio im happy for u guys =0)
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
ohhh shit yuri fell quite bad! it seems he hit his balls very fukin hard…
i think the only thing that skating needs is to invent some sort of ball/dick/ass protection, seriously, for me it’s 70% of the scare factor: my balls and ass. something that doesn’t stick out too much so you don’t look like a sexual pervert or something, something comfortable… please, we have to save our balls. i wanna have kids you know… it will also save some pussy, for those girls out there doing rails too…
:)
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Sizemore is the hype-beast!
Rollerblade is proud to support David!
Go David, Go!
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Buy a good Camera.
Resuk aka Ralf is a faggot.
Martin should have won it.
thx.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:30 pm
AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!!!!
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Stop having this competition. It makes rollerblading look unimaginative and boring. Dope smokers will watch anything in Holland.. Dont think that its the rollerbladers pulling them in..
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:25 pm
[...] » Mind the Gap 2009: finals won by David Sizemore | Rollernews.com [...]
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:13 pm
This made rollerblading look like such a side show. It was good skating, but it just looked like something you stop and see on the street, say how “crazy” those guys were, and move along. It is very belittling to the sport in my mind.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:10 pm
I like all competitions. I guess you can say I Just love rollerblading. Criticizing these kind of events based on how they are setup is besides the point. They are exposing the sport and they are showing how big rollerbladers can go.The general public and on-lookers can’t appreciate the TECH/ART side of blading which is y this kind of shit is important.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:38 pm
The hate is ridiculous!
Public people saw skating
Rollerbladers got together
and some people even made some money!
Why hate? That sounds like a lot of fun to me…
September 24th, 2009 at 12:13 am
It’s watching stuff like this that made me want to try rollerblading. Sure, it doesn’t show all that rollerblading can be, but it’s what people enjoy watching because deep down people just want to see others risk their lives. It gets boring watching this kind of stuff now, but I’m sure if I was 10 years old again this would be the coolest sport I’d ever seen.
September 24th, 2009 at 2:11 am
sizemore got bored destroying all the american contests so he went over to europe, only to destroy that one too lol.
September 24th, 2009 at 4:06 am
Now that is one hell of a trophy. Gonna be a bitch getting that thing home.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:31 am
generally good but skating is a bit sloppy
September 24th, 2009 at 8:43 am
normal people cannot grasp the concept of artistic rolling. they are too stupid. thye need to see this “masculine” side of it to be pulled in. use your brain sissy, not everyone is a philosopher and artist like yourself fidget. you have to sell out in this world to get famous and out there for the most part.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:52 am
david owned that place…
he definately deserved first!
besides, the crowd loved it…
people are hating on rollerblading sometimes getting commercial, and on the other hand they’re sad when they see companies like franco shade fade away…
September 24th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
in my opinion the skating sucks, too many spins and shit id rather see a nice disaster ao makio instead 450 and 630 royale thats why i dont like david sizemore’s skating that much (too much big stuff and spins to grind)
September 24th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Martin,
It’s a double bind…it really is. I said in an above post that this makes rollerblading look like a sideshow, which it does. On the other hand, I read your post and Eric’s post, and I know that you guys are right too. The way Eric said that he would have thought this was cool if he was a kid was 100% correct. I got my first pair of Oxygen AR 3.1 after seeing Arlo, Rivera, and company on MTV sports in 1995. BUT, rollerblading has also changed a lot since then. Rollerblading has taken on this independent, artistic feel to it. And as we all know, ask artists how much money they make. Ask a regular artist trying to sell some work how much money there is in that field. That is kind of where rollerblading is at. I am proud of how independent rollerblading is, but it sucks that companies are struggling as a result of that independence. Like I said before, if I see a 10 year old rollerblading at the skatepark, I see someone with a strong belief in something. If I see a 10 year old skateboarding at the skatepark, I have most likely witnessed a brief hobby that will be disposed of in the near future. It’s all a weird dynamic, that’s for sure.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
This is not what rollerblading is about. Nothing about style and creativity. What is the point of showing people that part of rollerblading? For me it’s step back.
September 25th, 2009 at 9:15 am
OMG MB that MTV show got me into skating sooo fucking much man…. man when Rawlison Rivera and Ryan Jacklone skated that famous downrail in New York… dude i recorded that show and skated my ass off for 5 years after…that little crap got me sooo guced. That teaser of the comp looked interesting.. I couldnt believe they were drilling those down rails like that…I wanna see the edit pronto. Ups to Sizemore. Does this contest make any difference in the WRS>? Dont forget to watch the WRS FINALS in LAS VEGAS OCTOBER 31st!! shits gonna be crazy…..
September 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
romaine should of won that is favouritism bullshit if thats even the right spelling