Congratulations to Yu Katagiri, winner of the last stop of the UCI Freestyle World Cup out here in Sakai, Japan.
Yu was followed on the podium by his brother, Ryo Katagiri and young buck Ren Oshima in the third place podium spot. What a level in the final as you would expect in Japan.
Yu Shoji won the year end ranking followed by Yu Katagiri and Julien Baran.
Men’s Elite final result:
Congratulations to Carin Hommura winner of the Womens Elite class at Fise World, last stop of the UCI freestyle World Cup here in Sakai, Japan. Carin was followed by Ayuna Miyashima in the second place, and Nina Suzuki on the third place podium spot.
The surprise being the 2025 UCI World Champion, Chiaki Todaka off the podium spots in fourth place. Great riding from all the women, level is going up each event.
Twelve riders down to top eight today for the Men’s Elite class here at Fise World, in Sakai Japan. Congratulations to Yu Katagiri holding on to the top spot followed by Yu Shoji and Ren Oshima.
Finals tomorrow…
The level goes up every Fise World event in the Women’s Elite, with all the girls throwing down amazing runs today here in Sakai, Japan.
Congratulations to Carin Hommura taking first, with UCI World Champion, Chiaki Todaka in second place followed by Nina Suzuki, and Ayuna Miyashima in the fourth place spot.. Top four make tomorrow’s final.
What an amazing level today at Fise World Sakai, Japan! Congratulations to Yu Katagiri who put on a real showcase today to take the top spot, followed by Yu Shoji and Ren Oshima.
Top 12 make tomorrows semi final, good luck to everyone competing.
27th November 2008, it all began as a blogspot for Flatmattersonline!
It’s quite fitting, that I celebrate 17 years of Flatmattersonline today here in Japan, widely known as the most progressive country in the flatland world.
What do I celebrate about 17 years of running FM? I celebrate the flatland community, everyone who’s made a video, and in turn shared it the community, the original ethos of the website hasn’t changed in the last 17 years, and it’s something I still use in my own riding day to day.
“To document, share and progress! “.
For personally, I think the biggest celebration is the fact I’m still going all these years on, you can’t really realistically wish for anymore than that, more recently faced a big challenge with the website keep going down. Thankfully my good friend, Martin Northern was able to save the website and all that content.
Thank you Martin!
Who’s been here since the beginning? Would love to hear people’s first memory.
Happy 17 years to Flatmattersonline, long may it continue.
Congratulations to Ryo Katagiri, who just took his first Chimera Aside win in Okayama, Japan. Followed by Young buck, Takatora Hishikawa in second place and Yu Shoji taking the third place spot with Yu Katagiri and Kio Hayakawa right behind on fourth and fifth place spots.
Next stop, Fise world in Sakai this week…
The annual Flatark contest just went down this past weekend at the Yokohama Urban Sports Festival!
Congrats to Naoto Tamaru taking the win in the Open class hitting all his signature stuff with style and flow he is infamous for, followed by Ren Oshima (see photo below) and Takato Moriya in the third place spot mixing bangers front and back wheel!
In the women’s class, Carin Hommura took the win, just ahead of Nanue Takahashi and Nina Suzuki in third (see photos below in order of placing), the level is getting better each event as cliche’ as that is to say, it’s true!
Great to watch this event using a similar style to street league in skateboarding, each combo pulled was scored live.
Podium Results:
Open Class.
1st Naoto Tamaru
2nd Ren Oshima
3rd Takato Moriya
Womens Class.
1st Carin Honmura
2nd Nanae Takahashi
3rd Nina Suzuki
Expert Class.
1st Sota Watanabe
2nd Ginsei Kawauchi
3rd Ryuya Kanamoto
Novice Class.
1st Jiro Kaneko
2nd Joji Harafuji
3rd Hiromu Ide
Photo credit: @hikarufunyu
Jigen Omothehara just started a podcast, covering Japanese riders that many times I’ve said with riders globally “we don’t know much about”… Jije hits the ground running with his second episode guest being the 2025 UCI World Champion Yu Katagiri.
They discuss contest formats, the need to be aggressive in the contest environment, rather than focused on consistency, the national federation, contest surfaces, relationships, switching from front wheel to back wheel, Yohei Uchino’s inspiration and much much more.
Thank you Jije for getting this started, I’ve been waiting for something like this from the Japanese scene.
Well worth a listen with the English subtitles…
Congratulations to Yu Katagiri who held onto the first place spot from qualifying, thus taking the UCI World Championship title back to Japan in a tense final that right down to the wire.
Yu nailed his 360 bikeflip line to seal the deal with a score of 91. Closely followed by Jean William Prevost from Canada, who carried the fight for the title with his insane back wheel pivot skills, and third place went to Dustyn Alt from Germany who had one of the most impressive runs keeping the tempo high for the whole 3 minutes. What a contest, great to see the Riyadh crowd loving flatland and the level getting pushed in the contest pressure cooker atmosphere!
Thanks Ryan Russell for the podium shots!
