Germany vs. The Netherlands 2022 | De Fabrik / Enschede

After a one hour train ride, it was time to go shopping in Enschede because the park didn’t open until noon. The guys wanted to make the most out of their one day vacation in the Netherlands. When noon rolled around, a big part of “Team Germany” was first to arrive at the park, meaning they could get in a good warm up.

Interestingly, the Dutch shredders were a bit late. Around 2pm, the Dutch task force consisting of Bart Buikman, Douwe Macare, Diego Broest, Jason Lijnzaat and Bert Wilmink arrived. Right away, the race was about to start. On the German side, Christoph Radtke and Jan Hellwig got to work quickly which proved to be quite helpful for "our" team. 

In total, there were 3 heats with about 10 riders each. Everyone had 2 runs, the best run counts. From these runs, 6 German and 6 Dutch riders were then filtered out. The same procedure followed again, resulting in 3 riders per country for the finals. On the German side, Christoph Radtke, Jan Hellwig and Leon Matheisel made it to the top 3. They competed against Diego Broest, Bert Wilmink and Douwe Macare. Even if you think the results might be clear from the beginning, it was not! 

The Germans managed trick after trick with Hellwig especially throwing down, making for a close contest. Before the best trick contest continued, there were a few smaller battles out in front of the park, but only Dutchmen competed here. Antoni Zeyer fought his way onto the winner's podium with a kickflip backside lipslide shove-it over the whole box. A short time later, it was announced that it was once again the Dutch who had taken the victory. According to the judges and presenter Kees, it was a very close fight and it will be interesting to see how things turn out next year. One thing’s for sure, the Germans are gonna come prepared!