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 BMX Street Podium |
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 Dennis Enarson |
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 Morgan Wade |
Dhers Flairs Into the Win
The BMX Street Contest Goes to Former Champion
by Brooke Geery
The BMX Street finals was by no means a runaway for Daniel Dhers, who was looking to recapture his title from 2006, but after his two runs, he left no room for question that he'd earned it. The street course in the Key Arena was fairly compact — different from most of the competition courses this year. It made for a change in strategy for many riders, and while most started strong, after a few bangers they seemed to lose steam, repeating tricks and throwing straight airs. But for Dhers, who can pretty much make the best of any course, the set up was quite ideal. With more flair and tailwhip variations anyone else, and endless quarter pipes and hips to do them on, the only question was which order he would throw his tricks.
As the highest seeded rider, Dhers had the advantage of going last, so he knew exactly what he had to do. In his first run he posted the highest score yet, a 92.75, more than two points better than Dennis Enarson's 90.00.
The competition was a best of two run format, so while some riders excelled on their first run, others had to rely on the second run to try and earn a medal. Heavy hitters such as Anthony Napolitan and Allan Cooke had some trouble in their first runs and while both rode better second time around, they were unable to best Dhers. Those riders such as Rob Darden and Enarson, who'd already posted strong scores also looked to improve, and silver medalist Darden was successful at it, tying Enarson's first run score. In order to hold on to the silver Enarson needed to better Darden's first run with his second, and looked like he might do so after sticking a triple tail whip over the box, but got taken out on a backflip whip over the spine, and had to settle for third.
By the time Daniel dropped in for his second and final run, he'd already won it. But instead of taking the PLG approach and doing fun, crowd-pleasing tricks, he went for added tech and difficulty. He pulled off a few equally, if not more crowd-pleasing tricks, such as a tail whip flair and a one-handed 720 can can to best his own score by almost two points.
Back atop the podium after a one-year hiatus at the LG Action Sports World Tour, Daniel explained his strategy. "I had a few tricks that I wanted to try, either that I hadn't done in awhile or that I hadn't done in a good combination," he said. "I didn't care if I was second or third or first, I just wanted to up my first run and that's what I did."
The $30,000 Dhers earned for becoming World Champion on November 1 is the icing on a stellar season in which he won just about everything. Now with the BMX competition season over, he plans to head back to the Southern Hemisphere to spend the winter at his home in Venezuela.
