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!
Congratulations to 15 year old Chiaki Todaka taking the UCI World Championship title back to Japan, followed by Carin Hommura and Sona Yoshimura in third place with Hungarian Veronika Kadar in the fourth place spot. The level was the highest I’ve seen so far in the Women’s class, really exciting to watch the progression each event. (Check the socials for some mind blowing lines from these shredders!).
Japanese domination in the Women’s Elite class with the top three all Japanese, out here at 2025 UCI World Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Chiaki Todaka in the top qualifying spot, ahead of Carin Hommura and Sona Yoshimura and Veronika Kadar from Hungary in the fourth place qualifying spot. Good luck to all the finalists tomorrow.
Congratulations to Yu Katagiri taking the top spot in the Men’s Elite class out here in Riyadh, Saudi for the 2025 UCI World Championships followed by Varo Hernandez and Julien Baran in the top three spots. Top 8 make tomorrow’s final, who will crowned World Champion?
Golden footage from the archives around the 2010 period, from one of the best to ever do it. Non other than Ross South, double rolaids, check, double straddle-ronis, check, backwards xft-ed hitch jugglers, its all here! Ross is one of the masters of feathering the brake, a technique sadly lost and overlooked in the brakeless era!
