World-class athletes soared the skies in perfect flying conditions.

Zurich was on fire yesterday, with the world’s leading freestyle sports athletes in Snowboard, Freeski, FMX and MTB Dirt Jump combining their powers to make history! More than 32.000 spectators witnessed a never seen before simultaneous “Crossover Discipline Run”.

Freeskiers flying directly behind snowboarders down the Big Air and in for a landing as FMX riders catapulted over them against the backdrop of MTB riders – THE ultimate sports explosion! It doesn’t get better than that…

Snowboarder Chas Guldemond (USA) and freeskier Henrik Harlaut (SWE) bagged the title in their discipline. Danny Torres (ESP) proved once more that he is a living fmx legend, winning the title in the fourth! consecutive year.
It was the event’s premiere of the MTB Dirt Jump.

Thousands requests of Facebook fans convinced the event organisers to finally grand the mountainbikers the “flight permission on Zurich’s Landiwiese”. And their persistence paid off with Martin Soederstroem (SWE) securing the first ever freestyle.champ MTB Dirt Jump title in the event’s 18-year history!

Contents courtesy © Freestyle.ch & Quattro Media

Two years already passed since we started working on the Candiesmag project! Our page is still here and it’s growing day by day. We’re pretty happy with the result and – of course – we’ll work even harder in the future!

Have you ever thought about what it takes to run Candiesmagazine?

- 730 days up online
– more than 1’000 articles published
– something like 500 GB of pictures in our hdisks
– endless nights on photoshop, illustrator and wordpress
– 24/7 glued to all freestyle news worldwide
– about 60 EXCLUSIVE pro interviews, featuring the Helgasons, Andreu Lacondeguy, Alex Barbero, Manuel Pietropoli, Hana Beaman, Simone Kid Barraco, The Hatebreed, Camila Harambour, Joni Malmi,Dean “Blotto” Gray.
– Dozens of major events covered live with exclusive footages, like Winter X Games, Vans Off The Wall Spring Classic, Un Tranquillo Weekend di Paura, Torino Street Style and many more
– a view over the most important – not only European – spots and resorts for freestyle sports such as Barcelona, Whistler,Les 2 Alpes, Venice Beach, Berlin and more
– more than 350 video reviews!
– daily updated Facebook, Twitter, Google+ pages!

And do you want to know what is the most important thing? We’re still HAVING FUN!!!!!

We made a short 1:30 clip that resumes all the best moments we had in these last 2 years, in pictures! Enjoy it!

We also would like to thank: all the skaters, snowboarders, surfers, bikers, and all the crews we met and rode with us, all the bands and artists, all the crazy photographers that contributed in the last years – men, love for you all Nicola Debernardi and Doberman Production, Yanis Ourabah, Alessio Scaccabarozzi Photography, and also those who helped us in the past – we’ll never forget, kids! All last but not least our fans, friends, supporters, Candiesmag enthusiastics, you’re the only reason that keep us doing! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANDIESMAG!

<3

Silvia & Carlo.

Levi Sherwood was the favourite competitor of the FMX competition in Estavayer-le-Lac, Switzerland. The young New Zealander finished on the 1st step of the podium at the Swatch FMX Contest 2012. Mat Rebeaud, encouraged by thousands of local fans, was in excellent shape and gathered the second place with only few points behind the winner.

For its 20th anniversary edition Swatch Free4Style in Estavayer-le-Lac has invested in a new FMX competition zone. The pilots started over two consecutive ramps and the public area has been extended,the eight competitors had 90 seconds each to present theirs tricks and figures.
The riders judged theirs runs together and Mat Rebeaud had wings today. He astonished the more than 4’000 spectators on site this afternoon, but the winner of the X-Fighters Dubai and second placed at the XGames Los Angeles Levi Sherwood was stronger than Mat and won the 2012 title.

Guys i’m sure you already checked out tons of last X Games videos these days, but well, here we have a previously unreleased footage straight from LA. Check it out – Filmed and edited by Nick Pescetto.

“We went down to LA for the X GAMES. It was a blast. Our man Simone Barraco got 5th at the bmx street park, his first x games, so stoked. X was so fun, lots of partying, crazy people, hots chicks, some surfing, sun and stoke. Cp Gang x Frontocean”

…and don’t miss the full recap from X Games 2012 Los Angeles

Day 1 Day 2  Day 3 Day 4

Party On!

Here we are with the last day of Summer X Games in Los Angeles. One of the highlights was surely the Men’s Skateboard Street competition finals, where Paul Rodriguez dominated the scene followed by Ryan Sheckler and Nyjah Huston

Bmx big air finals were pretty exciting with Steve McCann flying like there was no tomorrow with his no-handed double front-flip. Seecond place went to Zack Warden and the bronze to Kevin Robinson.

The Rally Cross saw Sebastien Loeb on top of the podium followed by Ken Block and Brian Deegan

Last but not least, the Moto X Enduro men saw the victory of Mike Brown, Cody Webb and Cory Graffunder while among the women the winners are Maria Forsberg, Louise Forsley and Chantelle Bykerk.

 

Pictures: (c)Gabriel Christus, Tomas Zuccareno / ESPN Images

Day 3 of X Games 18 Los Angeles was vert-iginous! With 6 medals events and crazy bmx and sk8 vert finals!

Pierre-Luc Gagnon got gold after battling out Bucky Lasek in a tiebreaker decision in the Skate Vert Finals. Competition was intense – Andy MacDonald took bronze after giving everything he got, including a new 540 kickflip, and 12yrs Tom Schaar was still there landing 900 like there was no tomorrow – the kid got this trick dialed, men. To be mentioned last year gold medalist Shawn White did not take part in competition.

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Pierre-Luc Gagnon 91.00
2 Bucky Lasek 91.00
3 Andy Macdonald 85.70
4 Sandro Dias 85.30
5 Danny Mayer 85.30
6 Rony Gomes 83.00
7 Tom Schaar 81.70
8 Elliot Sloan 69.70

Back to vert for the bmx finals, where the – 40 years old! – Jamie Bestwick shown everyone what mean to be THE BEST with a terrific tech run including downside tailwhip to turndown and flair double whip – yes, crazy!

I’m loving this X Games edition cause it’s definitively the “legends” against the “groms” – an incredible challenges putting heat on the competition! Here’s full result of BMX Vert.

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Jamie Bestwick 86.00
2 Vince Byron 72.00
3 Simon Tabron 72.00
4 Steve McCann 70.00
5 Austin Coleman 64.00
6 Chad Kagy 63.00

Heading to the park for the skate finals where Pedro Barros won his second X Games Skateboard Park gold medal, beating out Ben Hatchell and Rune Glifberg in a down-to-the-last-second battle. Runs included pieces of skate art like a fakie ollie to nosegrind over the hip, a 360 over the gap, an alley-oop 50-50 through the shallow end pocket, a lein Sal flip, a “Unit” frontside invert 540 in the deep end to shallow and a frontside kickflip… unreal stuffs!

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Pedro Barros 84.00
2 Ben Hatchell 83.00
3 Rune Glifberg 78.00
4 Kevin Kowalski 71.00
5 Ben Raybourn 69.00
6 Andy Macdonald 62.00

On bmx park finals Scotty Cranmer won his third gold medal at X Games battling against Ryan Nyquist (silver) and Pat Casey (bronze).
Daniel Dhers, holder of 4 of the last 5 gold, was out of the comp due to an injury suffered in practice.

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Scotty Cranmer 79.00
2 Ryan Nyquist 77.00
3 Pat Casey 76.00
4 Brett Banasiewicz 75.00
5 Drew Bezanson 70.00
6 Gary Young 67.00

Take a quick break with Tanner Foust and Greg Tracy successfully challenging the Hot Wheels Double Dare Loop!

Back to the street area for the Game of Skate Comp, where Ryan Decenzo beated our Ishod Wair, Aaron “Jaws” Homoki, and Mike “Lizard King” Plumb, winning his second consecutive gold in this contest. Ryan showed up his incredible archive of switch trick on that rail. Props man.

RANK
1 Ryan Decenzo
2 Ishod Wair
3 Aaron Homoki
4 Mike Plumb

Ending with MX with Motocross Speed and Style comp, where Mike Mason took gold against MX living-legend Nate Adams…

RANK        SCORE
1 Mike Mason 92.8
2 Nate Adams 91.3

… and a curious ending in Women MX Finals, with a result that was exactly the same as the one in 2011! Deja-vù?!

RANK TIME (SEC.)
1 Vicki Golden 300.8
2 Tarah Gieger 308.0
3 Livia Lancelot 310.0
4 Meghan Rutledge 312.5
5 Jessica Patterson 318.2
6 Tatum Sik 322.1

Stay tuned for Day 4 with BMX Big Air and Skateboard Street Finals!

Day two of X Games 18th was unbelievable! There have been so many events that was rather difficult to follow all the competitions without losing highlights and best moves from the different contests that took place in the hot Los Angeles nite.

Bob Burnquist won the fourth gold medal in skateboard Big Air with a run of his own, including a jaw dropping switch backside 180 ollie over the channel and indy grab 720 on the 27-foot quarter pipe. Even more amazing if considering Bob was injuried after slamming hard on Tuesday practice.

The kids in the competition pushed the limit givin’ everthing they got – Brusco, 15years old, took silver with a 720 and a 900, Nolan Munroe, 17, got bronze with an HUGE McTwist 540. But was not enough to defeat the well, 35 years old, skateboarding legend. This was a cool demonstration that still a good, super stilish switch back 100 can still be better than any other doped rotation

Tom Schaar, attended for his 1080, failed to land and got 6th with “just” a 900. Man, pretty sick contest, isn’t it?

RANK BEST SCORE
1 Bob Burnquist  94.33
2 Mitchie Brusco 93.00
3 Nolan Munroe  91.00
4 Jake Brown      90.00
5 Rony Gomes     90.00
6 Tom Schaar     89.33

On Bmx Street Garrett Reynolds took gold with a smooth overall 85.0, but this time the shout out is for Simone Barraco, at his first X Games experience, gaining a good 5th position! Props Kid!

RANK BEST SCORE
1 Garrett Reynolds 85.00
2 Chad Kerley         83.00
3 Dakota Roche      69.00
4 Jeremiah Smith 69.00
5 Simone Barraco  68.00
6 Bruno Hoffmann 62.00

Alex Sablone got gold in Women Skateboarding Street Finals with a super 85.66 score, amazing result considering she’s the only skateboarder to have finished in the top two each of the last four years, winning in 2010 and finishing second last year and in 2009.

RANK BEST SCORE
1 Alexis Sablone     85.66
2 Leticia Bufoni      81.00
3 Rachel Reinhard 80.33
4 Marisa Dal Santo 76.66
5 Lacey Baker         68.33
6 Elissa Steamer    62.00

Day two ended with the Finals for FMX – Step Up and Best Trick competition – seeing Ronnie Renner setting a new high (literally!) with a 47 feet clean jump!

RANK MAX HEIGHT (FT)
1 Ronnie Renner 47.00
2 Matt Buyten    46.00
3 Brian Deegan  39.00
4 Myles Richmond 36.00
5 Max Bianconcini 32.00
6 Todd Potter        32.00

On FMX Best Trick, unbelievable gold medal by Jackson “Jacko” Strong with the “Jack,” a variation of the Special Flip body varial backflip invented by BMX rider “Special” Greg Powell. The word “Stono” on Strong’s front race plate was a tribute to rider Luke “Stono” Stojanovic, still in coma after suffering a serious FMX injury.

RANK BEST SCORE
1 Jackson Strong 91.00
2 Taka Higashino 90.33
3 Cameron Sinclair 89.33
4 Thomas Pages 88.66
5 Clinton Moore 86.66

To be mentioned the crash occurred to Finnish rally driver Toomas “Topi” Heikkinen during rally practice, broking his left ankle and suffering abdominal injuries. Man, can be funny and stuffs but don’t forget, the kids are risking it all for the show! Big Ups tp Topi and all the riders of this CRAZY X Games Edition!