Sam Reynolds (Best Freeride Line), Sam Pilgrim (Best Slopestyle Line), David Godziek (Best Trick Slope Style), Spanier Adolf Silva (Best Trick Freeride) and Lukas Schäfer (Best Style) emerged victorious in the Audi Nines MTB Freeride Festival for elite international mountain biking competitors. The starting field included further Nicholi Rogatkin (USA), Emil Johansson (SWE), Sam Pilgrim (GBR), Szymon Godziek (POL), Adolf Silva (ESP), Diego Caverzasi (ITA), and Geoff Gulevich (CAN) as well as Germany’s top MTB riders Nico Scholze, Tobi Wrobel and Amir Kabbani. The course was ideally designed for the competitors: 14 spectacular elements on a freeride line with challenging obstacles and a complete slopestyle course replete with drops, jumps and hips. The course in the Hunsrück-Hochwald region was developed by a design team comprised of mountain bikers Patrick Schweika (GER) and Sam Reynolds (GBR) following the motto “by riders for riders”.
Audi was backing the mountain biking event for the first time this year as title sponsor in a continuation of its commitment to trendy sports. Alongside the new title sponsor, the focus this year was on the new format of the competition. Instead of the single-day event of previous years, this time the athletes had a whole week to show off their most impressive tricks for the watching cameras. After viewing the video material, the riders assessed each other’s performance in a total of four different categories.
The Audi Nines MTB 2018 event was held in cooperation with the new Bikepark Idarkopf facility. When it opens in 2019, it is set to become the largest mountain biking location in Germany with 23 kilometres of tracks.