It was a bit scary when you entered the skate hall “De Fabrik” in Enschede on June 1, 2024. I mean, you're used to Bert Wilmink and Daniel Moragues, who not only tear everything apart in their local hall, but also show everyone “You don't fuck with me in here!”, right Exactly! But, no, there were also 3 “new” riders at the start, who had never been seen before as an old-established “Ensche Contest guest”. There were two Belgians who really made you freeze! Seriously! One of mine didn't even want to take a photo of Beau and Jack, at least for the first 2 hours of the contest. 10 and 15 years old, both from Belgium, with coach dad and all, but with a bag-of-tricks, fuck off! Neither of them won, but somehow they both did! There was also Yakov Terrel from Israel at the start and so it was full throttle “Welcome to the last and final ‘Pola-Contest’ in De Fabrik in Enschede!
This contest has been taking place in Enschede for 10 years now and this should be the last edition of this somewhat different contest format. The special thing about the Pola contest is that all riders are explicitly invited and the best 5 of the 30 riders go straight through to the final - period. However, this is only half of the event. The other half is a best-trick event on 4 “make-shift” obstacles, i.e. additions to the actual course. One rider will then be crowned the winner of each of these, logically.
As mentioned at the beginning, there is probably no skater in these parts who can hold a candle to Bert Wilmink in his local hall. Nevertheless, the little Belgians were serious competition and of course various other Dutchmen such as Douwe Macare or Chris Hoeve also ripped the hall to pieces. Mika Möller would have been the only German still a possible candidate for one of the best tricks, after all he did the highest wallride to fakie on the piller and a fs flip wallride on the big quarter extension. However, the judges saw it differently and so Toon Dierckx and Chay Marshall won these two obstacles. Reemy Aniceta took the win on the extremely high pola-rail and Yakov Terrel flew victoriously over the barrels. And then the contest was over again. The Dutch are simply extremely good at “fast but intense” events and we're already excited to see what Kees and the guys from “De Fabrik” skatepark come up with for next year! Thanks guys!