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Get all the info on BMX flatland event Red Bull Circle of Balance
Red Bull Circle of Balance will take place in New Orleans on December 17. Read on to get all the info, from live streaming details to who’s competing and the competition format.
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This December, BMX flatland competition Red Bull Circle of Balance returns for its fifth edition after previous events in 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2012. For the first time, the event – widely acknowledged as the Superbowl of flatland – is being hosted in the United States and will take place in the city of New Orleans.
Flatland is a progressive discipline of BMX that can best be described as dancing on a bike. It's a freestyle BMX style performed on flat ground or a floor. There are no ramps, rails or other obstacles, and tricks have to be generated by a rider without these elements. Red Bull Circle of Balance is the perfect event to showcase the sport as only the world's best are invited to compete.
Competition is via a battle format that sees athletes go one to one against each other to see if they can progress further. To add to the spectacle, the athletes will perform on their BMXs on a flat, circular stage that is surrounded by spectators who can almost touch them. Read on below to find out more about this spectacular event.
The [circular] stage for Red Bull Circle of Balance is set
© Rutger Pauw/Red Bull Content Pool
Camaraderie and respect is a common theme at Circle of Balance contests
© Jason Halayko/Red Bull Content Pool
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When and where is Red Bull Circle of Balance 2022?
Circle of Balance is happening on December 17, 2022, at New Orleans's Mardis Gras World venue. The Big Easy is the perfect city to host the event, with the culture and creativity of New Orleans complementing the artistic performances of the athletes on their BMX bikes.
Tickets to attend the event for those who will be Stateside around that time can be bought here [subject to availability]. For those who can't make it to The Big Easy, the event will be streamed live on Red Bull TV from 12.55am UTC on December 18 so that BMX fans around the world can watch the action as it unfolds.
Main event
Watch as 16 of the very best BMX flatland riders from across the world compete at Red Bull Circle of Balance.
More on BMX and BMX flatland
02
Who will be competing?
Sixteen of the very best will be in New Orleans to compete in this unique competition. The athlete list is the perfect mix of stars of the sport, veterans and new up-and-coming talent:
- Terry Adams (USA)
- Poosa-Art Pakphum (THA)
- Matthias Dandois (FRA)
- Alex Jumelin (FRA)
- Matt Wilhelm (USA)
- Kio Hayakawa (JPN)
- Bruno Morotti Bacchiegga (BRA)
- Jean William Prevost (CAN)
- Viki Gomez (ESP)
- Yu Katagiri (JPN)
- Yu Shoji (JPN)
- Omari Cato (USA)
- Varo Hernandez (ESP)
- Sietse van Berkel (NED)
- Moto Sasaki (JPN)
- Lee Musselwhite (ENG)
A very much younger Terry Adams and Viki Gomez at 2007's Circle of Balance
© Kay Clauberg/Red Bull Content Pool
Gomez, Adams, Prevost and Jumelin are very much the elder statesmen of flatland but those competitive genes still shine bright. For Adams, this edition of Circle of Balance is close to his heart due to the New Orleans location. Adams is Louisiana-born and his home base is just an hour away from the city. Gomez is the king of Circle of Balance having won competitions in 2002, 2007 and 2012. Can he make it a third competition in a row?
Below these legends are a group of athletes that took flatland to the next level in terms of innovation. France's Dandois has probably done more than any other rider to build the profile of flatland since 2012 and is the global figurehead of the sport, while Poosa-Art has shown that it's not only in Japan that flatland is popular in Asia. Musselwhite and van Berkel are another pair of experienced campaigners.
Matthias Dandois is still competition hungry
© Jason Halayko/Red Bull Content Pool
Kio Hayakawa – the young pretender
© Jason Halayko/Red Bull Content Pool
The up-and-comers are very much the Japanese contingent of Shoji, Katagiri and Hayakawa. These guys are frightening talents and have progressed what can be done in flatland BMX a step further.
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What's the format?
What makes Red Bull Circle of Balance so unique compared to other BMX flatland events is the format is unlike anything you would see in regular competition. Just like dance breaking event Red Bull BC One, athletes are pitched against each other in head-to-head battles with a judging panel deciding which athlete wins and advances in the competition.
Ready to do battle
© Rutger Pauw/Red Bull Content Pool
The format for this fifth edition of Circle of Balance will be one-to-one battles in each round right up to and including the final. With 16 athletes taking part, the first round will consist of eight ties, the second round four ties, the third round just two ties and then the final two competing for the overall title.
Athlete battles and how the draw then plays out to the final will be determined through a qualification event that happens the day before Saturday's live event. Athletes will be seeded depending on where they finished in qualifying, the hope being that the top two qualifiers are kept apart to meet in the final. For the initial first round, the top qualified athlete will be drawn against the athlete who finished 16th, the second best qualifier against the 15th and so on.
Each battle will consist of two visits to the floor (runs) per athlete. The first run for the athletes will be just one minute. The judges then have to decide which athlete is currently leading the battle, which will be indicated by an assigned color per athlete. Both athletes will then have a second run of one minute 30 seconds to complete their routine.
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How will Circle of Balance be judged?
A judging panel consisting of six former pro flatland riders will score athletes based on originality, difficulty, consistency, execution and style. At the end of each head-to-head battle, the panel will come together and then identify the winner by holding up cards with the riders' assigned color and score.
The judges for this Circle of Balance edition are: Frank Lukas (Germany), Chad Degroot (USA), Mike Steingräber (Germany), Travis Collier (Canada), Kotaro Tanaka (Japan) and Alexis Desolneux (France).
Who's got the vote from the judges?
© Rutger Pauw/Red Bull Content Pool
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The previous editions of Red Bull Circle of Balance
As mentioned above, Circle of Balance has been held four times previously. In 2002 at the first Red Bull Circle of Balance in Oberhausen, Germany, the winner was Viki Gomez. In 2004, Oberhausen was again the location for the event. Ryoji Yamamoto of Japan won the title that year.
Tokyo was the next destination for Circle of Balance in 2007, Gomez took his second competition win then and the Spaniard managed to take the title again when the fourth edition of Red Bull Circle of Balance took place in 2012, again in Japan, but this time in Kyoto.
4 min
Circle of Balance 2012
Red Bull Circle of Balance took flatland BMX to the next level in Kyoto, watch the action here.
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