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Report in English:
RAZORS VERTICAL CLASSICS 2005 German Mastership Qualification
at YOU Messe youth fair Essen When Niclas performed his McTwist 900, followed directly by a Flatspin 900, the large audience at YOU Messe youth fair Essen were swept off their feet. With a clean and perfect run, Niclas deserved to win and he won the contest. But he has yet to stand up against Kevin Lopez, last month"s winner at Muehlhausen, and Patrick Zimmermann who came in only fifth at Muehlhausen, but who has just defeated Kevin at Cincinnati ASA contest. So both will be hopful to achieve top scores at one of the next RAZORS VERTICAL CLASSICS Mastership contests this summer. Besides Niclas and other well-known skaters, there were also new faces, or better yet, faces that some of us have been missing for a long time, like Felix Herklotz from Bonn, or Sascha Reichert. Karlis Bowman is maybe the one who made the greatest personal improvement this time, so the judges" decision was surely a deception for him. But it wasn"t easy for them either, and they had to put two skaters both on the third rank. There were nearly a quarter of a million people at the fair and most of them at the halfpipe at least once. The regional TV station WDR had a live coverage of the Halfpipe event, many other major TV station had reports, the BILD newspaper put it on page 3, and the biggest regional newspaper WAZ, which is sold in every shop and subscribed by most of the people, put Niclas Stephan on the frontpage on Saturday! Surrounded by crowd and media, besides Open Sessions and skate rental, there was still time for the NRW Open Amateur Contest, where all ages from 9 to 52 took part. Local TV "WDR Lokalzeit Ruhr" did its live coverage right at that moment, so this was maybe the first ever live coverage (although a short one) of an inline contest in German TV. The smoothest amateur run was done by 11 year old Leroy Heim from Gelsenkirchen, who came in second with just one point behind Christoph Metzger. Both skaters, as well as the third, Christopher Dorf ("Murph") can hope to take part in the next German Mastership qualifications.

Report in English:
RAZORS VERTICAL CLASSICS 2005 German Mastership Qualification
at Thuringia Funpark Muehlhausen 17 April was a massive event with top level skating, like Kevin Lopez with a McTwist 540 transfer over the 2 m wide roll-in, followed by an Alley-Oop 540 McTwist, followed back to back by a 540 Transfer back over the roll-in. Just as sick as Niclas Stephan's combo: McTwist 900 to Flatspin 900. For the first time ever in Germany! Benni Drescher did a McTwist 720 to Bio 720, and Kiro Trayanov tried a Flatspin 540 over the roll-in. The crowd was getting crazy because the series of mad tricks just did not finish, Richy Sedlar doing a 2.5 m high Backflip Indian Grab, and Patrick Zimmermann with a Frontside 900, and there were not only spins ... Kevin Lopez and Niclas Stephan grinded backside Shifty's from here to Bangkok. Markus Gebele did Soul to Topside Soul, Niclas Stephan did a Fakie 360 Shifty, Dennis Dutt a 360 to Soul Stall. Kevin Quintin, Stephane Alfano and the Dutch guys with Jerry Bekkers all had to cancel the contest, and the second Bulgarian, Nik Naidenov was injured and could not compete, but if they had come too, maybe there would have been just too many tricks for one day. The Thuringia Halfpipe, which is 4 m high and 17 m wide and has a huge roll-in, just offers such a good opportunity for vert skaters to give everything they can. They all agreed that this is one of the best halfpipes in Germany or even in Europe, and that it's worth a trip, even for street skaters who can enjoy the large indoor parcour at the same location. The very friendly Thuringia Funpark team helped everyone find accomodation for free or very low prices. Thanks a lot to them! The next RAZORS VERTICAL CLASSICS contest will take place at St. Georgen (Schwarzwald in the South of Germany), Bremen, Aurich (North Germany), and Frankfurt am Main.