"So You Think You Can Longboard Dance?" flatland competition was organized by Spots N Locals, a longboard community organizing various longboard events in the Netherlands. The competition was back again this year hosting some of the finest European longboard-dance-gifted riders. Apart from the locals, riders from South Korea, Spain, UK, Belgium, Switzerland, France and others arrived on Saturday to a pre-contest party where everybody met up and skated together in the biggest skate hall the Netherland has to offer, having a couple of drinks and checking out how far everybody had come with their skills.
photo credit: Maria Arndt
The actual contest took place on Sunday, starting around 1 p.m. Everybody started to warm up right away while there were still people showing up and registering for the event. It was great to see a lot of people making their way to the contest who had literally no idea what longboarding was about. Of course, there were also supporters of the participants alone but this is just another sign that the popularity of longboarding has increased rapidly throughout the years.
After everybody had registered, the contest started with each run scheduled for 60 seconds where everybody had the chance to show the best moves. Non-sponsored riders were the first ones on the list, followed by girls' category, who by the way were damn good, and PRO's category to impress the judge and the audience. All three categories danced under the same circumstances and the same rules. After a few rounds, it was clear that the challengers were very strong with Germans' definitely taking the lead.
photo credit: Maria Arndt
photo credit: Maria Arndt
Besides the regular longboarding dance runs, each rider had the chance to convince the judge in the Hippie-jump and Best trick. After a long and exhausting day of skating, the winners were announced at around 10 p.m. The king of the dance floor, Jeff Ellis of Germany was announced as the overall winner, but what really stood out that day was the fact that apparently there have been a World record broken! German Steffen Köster, the winner of the Hippie Jump jumped 1,33 meters high on a street skateboard and later he jumped 1,5 m on a longboard, breaking the World record!!!
photo credit: Maria Arndt
photo credit: Maria Arndt
Congrats to everybody who showed up, the awesome organization and for making another unforgettable weekend! We hope to see more contests of this nature in the future all around the globe. Do not forget to check out below video from the competition!
Dance Men (Pro)
1. Jeff Ellis (GER)
2. Arto Rohde (NL)
3. Jon Haarhuis (NL)
Dance Woman
1. Deborah Keser (GER)
2. Melanie Golz (GER)
3. Femke Bosma (NL)
Dance Men (amateur)
1. Tom Schaeffer (LUX)
2. Will Edwards (US)
3. Steve Jung (KOR)
Best Trick
1. Renze van den Brink (NL)
2. Simon Arsenidis (GER)
3. Sam Holding (UK)
Hippie Jump
1. Steffen Köster (GER)
2. Sebastian Delgado (ESP) & Lotfi Lamaali (FR)
Overall winner (SYCLD TROPHY)
Jeff Ellis – (GER)
Source: allaroundskate.com; photo credit: allaroundskate and Maria Arndt
