2022 was fun and crazy year. I had a great time traveling around the world, meeting new people and riding my bike. Not to mention all the good times that i have spent with my friends and family.
Big THANK YOU to my family, friends and sponsors for all the support troughout the year. I am extremely happy to be going into 2023 with all of you. HAPPY 2023 TO EVERYONE!
The Australian city of Gold Coast hosted the first round of the UCI BMX Freestyle World Cup to take place Down Under, at the same time crowning the overall winners for 2022.
The competition took place at the world class training facility created by AUS Cycling next to the indoor location called The Hot Box. Logan Martin’s multiple UCI BMX Park World Championship titles and first Olympic gold defintely demonstrate that Australia is an important player in the sport, and the UCI BMX Freestyle Park World Cup showcased the discipline to the Australian public. I got there a little earlier to get used to the time difference and to rest well before the competition. During this time, I also trained at the excellent training grounds in the surrounding area. One of these was the Hot Box, where the Australian national team trains. It was a really great training ground. I also visited other locations, including one indoor park called “The village”.
I must admit that the course didn’t suit me at all. I had much more training than anywhere else, but I still didn’t get the flow of the park. Most of the difficult tricks I did at the competition and not on tranings. For me, the course at Gold Coast was definitely one of the most difficult so far.
Fifty men were looking for podium spots after a week of open practice on the permanent park where the athletes where able to acclimatise to the high temperatures. All competitors were riding great so the bar to get a good result was set very high. My ride consisted of a line that I had already made in my head and in qualifying I knew exactly on which object I would do a trick. The first qualifying run was good but then I crashed in the last three seconds of my run (see video below). The second run was solid, but still not enough for the place in the finals. I am very disappointed in myself and I feel sorry for everyone I had let down. The competition season ends here for this year. Can’t wait for next Fise World in Saudi Arabia February 2023!
For the first time in the Middle East, the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships was hosted in Abu Dhabi. Top athletes took part in the great arena with the iconic backdrop of the Abu Dhabi Corniche at Nation Towers as part of Bike Abu Dhabi Festival week. Spectators enjoyed in BMX Freestyle, BMX Flatland, and Trials and there was also a lot of the family-friendly activities including short bicycle courses, face painting, bungee trampoline, Graffiti artists, street dancers, BMX stunt shows, DJ, and lots more!
The park was interesting and in general it suited me well. The “jump box” was the only thing that worried me a little. The first training session was quite difficult and I didn’t do all the things I should have done. So I had to make the most of the training the day after, which lasted half an hour. I was one of 63 competitors competing for the title of the world’s best freestyle BMX in the park. The competition was really strong as there were only the best competitors from each country. All of them were completely “in tune” with their bikes so I knew that i had to be on my “A-game”.
Qualies went great but not perfect, because I had fifteen seconds left at the end of the run. In my head I counted on a maximum of 5 seconds, so improvised a bit at the end. It was also the first time that i officially landed a 360 triple tailwhip and I’m very happy! With a total of 74.13 points and on 22nd place, i managed to qualify into semi-finals of the World Championship. Did I mention that i was the second youngest semi-finalist and the fifth youngest participant in this year’s world championship?
For the semifinals we had two runs available, and the best one counted for the ranking. I scored 74 points in the first run, which was enough for 19th place at the time, as several competitors made several mistakes at the same time. In the second run, some showed better runs, but I failed to do so, as I finished the second run with a score of 57 points. In the end I ended up in 21st place, which is still a good result.
Next stop for the World Series of Urban Sports was Barcelona! It was held at the Parc of Fórum where the Extreme Barcelona Park is located. This is a UCI C1 ranked contest and is important to get some much needed points to get a place for Paris Olympics in 2024.
Park course was very modern and allowed us to be creative. Park set-up consisted of pool style areas linked together with rails, hips and ramps that the competitors use to impress the judges with fluid style, drive, originality and variety of tricks. Overall, I liked it a lot!
It was very relaxed. The first practice went really well because I did all the tricks I would need to move on into finals. Qualies went according to plan and my run was very smooth. I ended up in 9th place and i secured the place for Finals.
Unfortunately the practice before the semi-final was fatal for me. I crashed during the trick called 360 tailwhip to downwhip and I twist my ankle pretty badly. That was the end of the weekend for me, and thank goodness, the ankle was only sprained and not broken. The doctors said that I will be able to get back on the bike in about two – three weeks.
Last weekend, a special Golden Shoe Airbag contest was held inside of BMX Park Tržič, in which MTB and BMX riders competed in pairs and showing their best tricks. The event should originally take place on Loibl Pass, in front of the Karavank backdrop, where the competitors would perform their tricks on big airbag, but due to the bad weather forecast we were forced to move the event inside.
The concept of the competition was developed by my father Aleksander Remec and organized by BMX team Tržič with the help of Luka Borse. There were 12 competitors on the starting list, three of them from Austria. Tricks were performed in pairs where each pair was formed by a BMX rider and a MTB rider. Our main judge Igor Vukadinović – Poki ensured that everything was fair & square. He is an international judge from Osijek and also judged at the Olympic Games in Tokyo!
There were so many spectators that they filled every corner of the hall, and together with the official announcer Bike Bro, they created an unforgettable atmosphere. Riders were throwing down crazy tricks and the most impressive one were double backflip and quadriple thailwhip.
