Sixty freestyle footballers from all four corner of the world battled it out in Cape Town (South Africa) in April at the Red Bull Street Style World Final 2010. At the Castle of Good Hope in the footballing capital Cape Town emotions came to a head as the best freestyle footballers on the planet showed off their tricks in front of thousands of thrilled fans. Over the course of the three-day event the world-class athletes went head-to-head according to the simple rules of 3 minutes, 2 players, 1 ball.
Here at Maxim you might remember we let you know about the Red Bull Reporter assignment opportunity for an aspiring journalist to report on all the action. Steven Carpenter impressed the Red Bull Reporter Editorial team with his submissions, and was chosen to attend the event as a Red Bull Reporter.
We’ve tied up with Red Bull Reporter to bring you the exclusive article from Steven - you can check it out below…
If you are an aspiring writer, filmmaker, presenter or photographer and fancy the chance of a lifetime to become a Red Bull Reporter there are plenty of new sports, music and culture related upcoming assignments all over the world you could be going to – just head to www.redbullreporter.com to sign up and start submitting!
WORLD FINALS 2010 - CAPE TOWN
ANDREW HENDERSON: FROM ENGLISH UNKNOWN TO WORLD RECOGNITION
Three minutes, two ballers and one ball. These are the key ingredients that brought together the world’s top professional free style players at this year’s 2010 finals in Cape Town, South Africa. After over 200 qualifying tournaments, featuring over 5000 hopefuls, the winners of each regional qualification round gathered in front of the epic Table Mountain in a bid to become the 2010 Red Bull Street Style Champion.
Each player has twenty seconds to perform their trick and is judged on three criteria; control, creativity and style with the winners of each qualification round making it through to the last 16 knock-out stage. Let the battles commence!
Day 1 - Qualification: HENDERSON MAKES GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION
It was the first day of qualification and you could feel the sense of excitement in the air with rumors circulating around the camp that players were saving their best tricks for the final, but if the early rounds were anything to go by then South Africa was in for a huge football treat just over a month before the World Cup has even kicked-off.
English hopeful Andrew Henderson had a tough group in which he and opponent Kotaro Tokuda produced what many players and Andrew himself described as ‘the battle of the championship’. Tokuda, who coincidently is the same age as Andrew, came into this year’s World Street Style tournament as one of the hot favorites to go all the way and win the prestigious event.
Up against his skilful Japanese opponent, Andrew produced his best skills to date and each time his opponent responded well, but it was the United Kingdom who took the win and produced without doubt the first shock of the tournament, which dismayed not only the audience but Andrew himself too.
Andrew said, “From what all the crowd had said the first battle when I was up against the Japanese champion Kotaro Tokuda was the best battle of the competition, but I thought they were just saying that to boost my confidence but then I watched it back on camera and in my opinion it was the best battle overall.”
The 18-year-old impressed the crowds but more importantly the judges not only against his Japanese rival, but also against his other challengers and he stormed through qualifying by winning all four rounds on day one 3-0. This made him stand out as an early contender but there were others who shone along with the sun in front of Table Mountain.
The usual suspects returned on form, with the likes of defending champion Sean Garnier, the experienced Daniel Rooseboom and Ireland’s Hoai-Nam Nguyen all finishing top of their respective qualifying groups, but there were a few spanners thrown into the works too. First-time competitor Lukas Chwiedukz, nicknamed Luki who is still in secondary school really caught the eye with some telling skills and his on-stage charisma making him one to watch in round two.
Day 2 – Qualification: INJURY CAUSES CONCERN FOR UK HOPEFUL
The highlight of the second day of qualifying in Cape Town had to be the entertaining performance from an 11-year-old Nigerian. Habib Makanjuola , whose personal hero is Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, delighted the crowds with his unique performances, which were described by Jamaican journalist Oral Buchanan as “the most entertaining of the event so far” and the reporter went on to add, “this kid has got a long future in the sport if he keeps performing like that!”
After qualification on day two, it was clear Henderson was widely regarded as one of the favourites to win the competition. When he walked into the pre-final press conference to draw out the last-16 participants the room went silent and there seemed to be an air of respect towards him, but an injury concerned the 18-year-old heading into the final day.
He was drawn to play the experienced Dutch player Daniel Rooseboom in what many including the English media saw as a good draw, but his pathway to the final would be hijacked by the likes of defending champion Sean Garnier and South Africa’s ever improving Kamal Ranchod.
Finals Day: BRITISH HOPES DEALT UNDESERVED BLOW
The final day of the hugely successful Street Style was threatened by strong winds at an estimated 50mph putting the evening’s play on hold. It seemed as though all the afternoon training had come to nothing, but to their credit the players still decided to remain optimistic.
The contestants were given the good news that the last 16 stage of the competition hadn’t been blown away, just simply delayed which brought back the buzz surrounding the event. The wind was always going to test all of the players involved in the last-16 stage of the competition and when Andrew made his way onto the stage following a huge reception from the crowd the conditions were no different. His date with destiny began.
As the contest progressed both players raised the level, but it seemed to me that the 18-year-old had more in his locker and was certainly being more creative than his Dutch contender. But it was down to the judges, and they decided Dutch player Daniel Rooseboom was man of the match.
A deflated Andrew said, “It’s disappointing because in my opinion I did a good job and I don’t really understand how I lost that battle because although I dropped the ball twice, it was clearly because of the wind. I also felt I was the more creative. I produced to new moves that nobody has ever seen or done, one of them I only thought of the day before the event.”
He added, “I have no regrets at all to be honest. I think I did everything I could in my last 16 battle….”
Domestic hopes were now on Ireland’s Noai-nam Nguyen who made it through to the quarter-final stage of the competition but was defeated by the consistent Norwegian Anders ‘Azun’ Solum who had impressed throughout competition. ‘Nam the man’ as he is known in the sport, was obviously disappointed at getting eliminated but was delighted with his overall performance in Cape Town despite the windy conditions on finals day.
“I knew the level of freestyle would jump to another level at this year’s event, so I was happy and even more thrilled to find that I can safely say that I am now one of the top ten freestylers in the world. Winning all qualification battles was a surprise to me, so I was happy and my personal goal was to get through to the last 16 stage of the competition.”
He added, “Personally, I try to adapt to situations but nature got the netter of me…the wind was really hard and you don’t know when to expect the next gust so that is always on your mind, so I had to adapt and tried to perform safer tricks.”
With Britain and Ireland out, it was comforting to be able to sit back and simply enjoy the rest of the competition which still had a few more twists and turns around the corner. Firstly, defending champion Sean Garnier was knocked out at the semi-final stage, secondly crowd favorite Rocky looked odds on to make it all the way but was crowned third. Anders 'Azun' Solum from Norway was crowned champion after surprisingly defeating home favourite Kamal 'Kamalio' Ranchod in the final bringing an end to a stunning few days in Cape Town.
MORE FEATURES
Bookmark this post with: