Viki Gomez wins a rained out Fise!

Thunderstorms and controversy put a bad light over this years Flatland contest at Fise 2011, a heated fight about the battle format riding order between Alex Jumelin and Alain Massabova ruined the weekend for me, theres no place for fighting in such a small sport or any sport for that matter, props to Martti and Viki breaking up the fight,and Viki taking a blow to the face.Who knows what would have happened if they didn’t break it up. There were further arguments about the qualifying result, which was changed from our original decision. Messy!
Not a good weekend at Fise, this will be my last trip to a French contest. Pretty bummed about this! Over it!

The Final result now is…

Viki Gomez
Matthias Dandois
Jesse Puente/Alex Jumelin (tie)
Jean Francis Boulianne
Joris Bretagnolles
Jean Bulhon
Takahiro Ikeda

40 thoughts on “Viki Gomez wins a rained out Fise!

  1. woah….what do you mean fight? like a mma/ boxing kinda fight…or just an arguement? lol… damn..i hope someone fimled that shit…i know its not funny…but …wow!

  2. man…who fights and gets physical over a flatland contest? these guys are acting like little kids …and i dont know how old they are…but they gotta be grown men, no?

    makes no difference to me…but its a bit of a bad look for flatland i think… well anyways….hopefully an incident like this isnt repeated in the future…
    ..like play fighting and shit is ok… but this shit sounds kind of sad….

    oh well… props to the riders that held it down regardless

    when i held a jam at my homespot – i planned and had back up plans for mhy back plans incase it rained or whatever could possibly happen, even though only 5 riders showed up….

    this is an internation contest where riders are flying in from different countries! and they have a piss-poor level of planning …

    anyways….life goes on….

  3. LOL @ phil jokes . Seriously though what an embarrassment , why is it its always the french “pros” acting like f’ing children .

  4. theflatlandgods decree this has little bearing on how you pop wheelies on your puny bmx bikes, though we collectively frown upon fights of any kind amongst our chosen ones…

  5. Well, the next morning is here, and i’m still pissed about the whole thing here at fise, I don’t read it anywhere else, so I guess its down to me.
    The problem started actually as soon as I arrived, Welcome to France Effraim!
    Asked to start judging, no pen, just a paper. First problem!
    Whatever, I have quite good memory so… four riders in, it rained… so the contest stopped half way through Matthias’ qualifier, no touches half way through. JF Boulainne had a 3 touch run. Raphael touched a lot.
    Hour later or so, we start again, and get through qualifiers.
    Alain ask us for the top 8 riders, so we sit at edge of area, myself and Martin, and Manu.
    We decide the top three, Viki, Matthias, and Alex, Manu’s scores were very different than mine and Martins. But thats fine, opinion is just that.
    Alain goes away with the three papers, adds them together, and of course it didn’t match the meeting we just had. So the top three was Viki, Matthias and Jesse. It was really close between Alex and Jesse, so whatever not a huge deal. Alex was fourth.
    The battle order comes out, and doesn’t make any sense,as an example Viki vs Jean Bulhon (1-8), but Alex vs Matthias (2-4), that can’t happen first round, otherwise no point in qualifying, Viki Gomez pointed out the errors, and asked for it to be changed.
    We get to the contest yesterday, riders warming up, I am stood right next to Alex and Alain, they say a few words in french, and then very quickly they are pushing each other and kicking, trying to throw a punch, Martti and Viki step in and literally block the floor, Martti took Alex to the floor, Alex still try to get back up and continue, obviously very upset, Alain did much the same,, about 400 people saw this I guess, all of us in disbelief. There are huge problems in the French flatland scene, somebody needs to step in to stop this childish crap I don’t talk to him, etc etc,, its gone for years, and squash it. Either that or quit riding contests/prgnaising contests. I’ve never seen anything like it! If Martti and Viki were not there, these guys would be brawling in front of 400 plus crowd, good for flatland? No.
    The ironic thing is, Martti and Viki would get called out first round at KOG everytime they went, and they never had a physical fight…
    Ok. so ten mins or so, it calmed down, contest about to go down, with Marttis system, pick the rider you want to battle…. By this point, I don’t care and want to get out of his bullshit.
    It rains… and continues……it gets rained out. Qualifying results stand…..
    Me and Martti leave to get some food. We get called back to change the results.
    The organiser (I don’t know his name) asks to see me and martin along with Manu to change the results (“to be fair”).
    I could go on and on, i’m getting more pissed off talking about it, this “again” was not my contest, I didn’t get paid to judge, just expenses, I had no control over what happened to the sheets when they left my hands, pretty obvious surely?
    So… somebody stand up in France, for the good of the sport, squash the bullshit, and get along! Most of us are adults, start acting like it!

  6. i thought Alain owned / ran St Martin or is that Manu ? Alex rides for them seems like a personal grudge between those two guys that they could of sorted out prior to this event like real men know what i mean , shame that this overshadowed the riding as the main topic and that specatotors had to witness this ” handbags at dawn ” scenario not a good impression on the sport ,testosterone central me thinks.

    At least there was some cool riding to see inbetween the rain showers shame the weather was a bit unpredictable but yeah life goes on most negative things are forgotten after a while and as you say E totally agree F this bullshit !

  7. Well, glad I didn’t drive all the way down there for that. Real shame.
    It’s this kind of non-professional attitude (loose hands around the scores) that ruins the competition element of flatland.
    I don’t know why Alain and Alex got in a fight so won’t comment on that, even though it’s sad to see they had to settle their argument in front of that crowd and all the flatland riders. But as Effraim says, must be one hell of a difference in views to get that heated up.

    Hope things are sorted out quick and fast, and organisers take more responsibility next time.

    Sad day for flatland!

  8. Man. Bikes are bikes. People should just enjoy the fact that they are getting to ride their bikes and have fun. What a bummer to hear. Sorry you wasted your time Effraim.

  9. Just wanted to say that not all French contest are organised badly. Would be a pity if riders stayed away from France because of this incident.

    • To be honest its happened so many times, results get changed, this time it effected Alex, im staying away, I don’t need bad vibes like that. I just watched the pro park at fise, and it was amazing, the problem is with the riders, everyone talks about it, no one says anything, for fear of what exactly??? Theres hardly any money in flatland, if the beef is over money, time to quit, just f’ing ride, f’ all this politics crap, too much for me.

    • Martti would make a pretty good bouncer actually, he pinned alex to the floor pretty damn quick! Martti and Viki both deserve lot of respect for breaking that up!

  10. If flatland will ever grow up in France I don’t know the answer! What do I know, someone in that clicky mess of a flatland scene needs to man up and say look at what they are doing….

  11. One big problem with most comps is the judging is often done by volunteers selected the day of the event. I know there was more going on here than that but if you didn’t even have anything to jot down a score with how the fuck are you supposed to judge the event??? Formats and criteria NEED to be clear to ALL those involved! Judges meetings following each heat or battle may be necessary to weed out bias or extreme scoring variances but the organizer should not have a say in the results. We need to police ourselves behind closed doors.

    • Yes Brian! It was messy!!
      I must say the rest of the Fise contest was amazing! The problem is the flatland, and the people involved in flatland here in France, need to take a look at whats up in their scene, cause it sucks worse than ever! Theres not much else to say other than, thanks to Alain at least who came to the hotel to apologise, and again he explained and showed the mistakes in manu’s judging, because of the nature of the contest being rained out, we had meeting to decide top 8, then when the scores went away, manus scores took alex out of the top 3, what a crazy weekend, very sad for flatland. And possible the death of the battle format, and maybe flatland at fise is done i guess. At least it should be, theres no reason at all to have a contest here and make flatland look bad.All the guys need to sort their scene out before its dead. I feel sorry for these guys actually.

  12. Effraim, there should not be any generalisation from a relationship gone wrong between 2 people and the whole french scene.
    Moreover nobody should judge a situation they don’t fully know about. When someone insults your mom that died 2 weeks ago some fighting is bound to happen.
    Finally anyone who’s been to Fise before has seen that even though the area has never been the best spot to ride, but they always made a space for it and always pushed it so it got a wonderful audience.
    I personally have no interest in all this whatsoever and I too find it pretty sad that it had to come to this but unfortunately it happens to people that cant handle their business properly.
    Rant over. Peace, love and unity and viva flatland !

  13. Many thanks to Lionel Cardoso to clear a bit the situation for all the good volunteers and contests/jam hosts in France and for the guys who just enjoy to ride their bike and have fun together in this country.

  14. I don’t doubt at all there good people in France Lionel, Alexis Desolneux for example is one of my favourite riders. Alex did explain to me the situation, I guess I will never understand that. And Alain needs to apologise for that. I also understand the heat of the moment thing, just a really really sad situation. On top of that drama, we had the results changing, getting called back multiple times and so on, it was just one thing after another. Im pretty bummed about it.

  15. (then you maybe should change or delete your comment : “this will be my last trip to a French contest” because that can appear very rude for the whole flat french scene, specially coming from someone influencial like you Effraim Catlow !)

    A little bird told that maybe, this time, some words from the next Art Magazine’s editorial will be written to your intention…

    Glad to see that’s way more easy to post comments now on that great blog/website you run!

    • R,
      At this point in time, I have to be honest I do not want to go back.I can’t lie about that. If others wish to go, thats fine, thats their choice. But what I saw this weekend is not fun, and its also not what flatland riding is to me, its goes against everything I stand for. I wish I never saw that “drama”…It does put down good work other guys do there, Lionel for example, is one of the best dudes I met there. Alexis D…
      I don’t quite understand your Art comment, but its not me writing that if thats what you mean. I’ve said my piece. I just said what happened and my opinion on that. Thanks for the kind words about the site.

  16. I enter the discussion just to say one thing. Every year at FISE Alain Massabova changes the result as he wants.

    Last year, Viki musnt be in the top 8, but i saw Alain who put him with the same points than Dominik Nekolny for a death battle to be in the top 8. Dominik did a nice run in qualification and Viki touched hard, but Alain wanted Viki in final so he was there. Finally Viki won the battle and finished 3rd and those points who he musnt have win made him winning the WOLRD CIRCUIT…

    In France scene Massabova’s brothers are the real problem… Manu always put his friends in top of rankings how if they musnt be there and Alain’s made the same..

    But it’s only contests … thats not the most important thing ! (sorry for my bad english ! )

  17. Too much frenglish is killing english language I suppose,
    I know you probably won’t write a editorial for Art Mag, in clear words what I mean is that maybe the editorial on the next Art Mag, if written by Alain Massabova, will include words for you because you wrote “And Alain needs to apologise for that”, in that case that won’t be the first time that messages are delivered like that, we’ll see

  18. Yes!!! Shame on French Flatland cause of this dramatic ugly beefs but everybody must keep in mind that Paris is NOT the French Flatland scene.
    Really! A lot of guy ride hard here in france , Charles Paty, Romain Dodelier, Mike Plas, Thomas Deschenaux etc…for example.
    We’re sad to here that Effraim will never go to a french contest again according that we are working hard on our annual french contest the “Com’In Lyon”, see you there where you’ll find the riders named above plus a lot more from all country. 3 and 4 of September Lyon FR. We will send you all info asap.
    Comment from Gaz, Dorian and Rémy written on the bench of our local spot in Lyon, after yesterday’s session.

    ps: Tonight we’ll watch the “Super Ultra Zai” with all flatlanders from Lyon, no beefs just beers, flatland tricks and goodvibes.

  19. (yeah and Paris scene is really not only the ex-mexicos crew members (Massabova brothers and A.Jumelin) ; there are still guys in Paris who won’t get on a “beef”.
    There are several scenes in France, Lyon must be the biggest at the moment and one of the coolest (as the “Com’In Lyon” event), even if I personaly have good fun in Paris with my mates in the main spots where the big names don’t come to ride in a regular basis)

  20. This was not the first showdown between those too, but let’s hope this will be the last. With all that Alex has accomplished as a business man, he should run away from Alain.

    I quit riding because of Alain… This guy is a vicious liar who shouldn’t be supported by anybody anymore. When he announces a new version of Cream, it actually means that he fucked up to many people to run the magazine and that he needs to find news candid guys to scam. Believe me, I was one of them.

    If you don’t want to see this kind of drama again, just don’t subscribe to the… 7th maybe?, “new version” of Cream, this ART piece of ****. This is the only thing that keeps Alain in the system.

    Gather a few friends and start your own FUN mag!

    Man, I stopped riding 4 years ago. I was moved by the recent bad news in Alex’s life and decided to had a look at what flatland has become…

    (all allegations against Alain can be proven, I kept record of that, and the French law system does too…).

  21. Guys this already got really old, the world needed to know the story, thats it really, what should come out of this are certain measures so this never happens again, anywhere.
    That would take some time of course to sort out, perhaps a head judge appointed to over see that scores are correct, battle order is defined, if the battle format is still really a good thing Im not so sure anymore, thats an entirely different topic.
    Lets try and make something good come out of this drama.

  22. battles never made sense to me E.. especially when so many contests take qualifying results and ignore them when they should have been seedings for the battle ie 1 -8, 2-7 etc. And don’t get me started on fiddling french results.. le vache ronde!!!

Leave a Reply to Effraim Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*