Sun, Carnival, beach and… Tricks! That was the Brazil FMX Cup, which took place in the fancy Barra Beach in Rio de Janeiro during the famous Brazilian Carnival.

Certainly the first things that come to your mind when you think about Rio de Janeiro are sun, beaches and Carnival. But, could ever imagine all these attractions along with a freestyle motocross event? That was what happened during the two days of Brazil Freestyle Motocross Cup, in Rio. The most prestigious contest of Brazilian FMX scene took place in Barra Beach, inside of a special arena built over the hot sand. The best riders of the country were there, plus the American Derek Burlew and Sebastian Mejia from Colombia. Them all looking for one goal: take the first place in Best Whip, Freestyle and Doubles competition.


Derek Burlew

The contest started on Saturday morning with the qualifying. The winner was Marcelo Simões, followed by Derek Burlew and Fred Kyrillos. Simões made a solid run, showing a good variety of technical tricks, such as 9-o-clock nac hart indy look back, tsunami and holygrab. An interesting fact of this phase was that the top three riders have beaten the unique flipper in action, Gilmar

“The Ladybug” Flores, who finished in the fourth place. That just made clear backflips are not everything these days and a strong base of regular tricks is essential to reach the top positions.

“Take the first place in the qualifying was unbelievable! I did not have much time to practice before the event. But I had a great result at the last round of Night of the Jumps. That definitely increased my motivation to push the in Rio” said Simões, who was the Brazilian FMX Champion in 2008.


Gilmar Flores

After the qualifying was the time for the Best Whip contest. That was a head to head battle, starting with Derek Burlew versus Gilmar Flores and later Mello versus Giancarlo Bergamini. Burlew and Mello advanced. In the finals Burlew beat the Brazilian rider pulling quite stylish whips.


Marcelo Simões

On Sunday Gilmar Flores got the victory in Freestyle finals. He changed his routine, putting some good regular tricks in his best run, like kod and 9-o-clock nac. Gilmar also flipped, landing variations like super flip and whip flip. Besides, he was the responsible for the most scaring moment of the venue, when he crashed trying a flip nac in the box in his second run! No big injuries, just a few scratches. He stood up, and walked away straight to the crowd! People were on fire!

“That was an amazing feeling! I did everything I wanted, including many backflips combos. On Saturday I rode not so good cause of the wind, but I’ll sleep fine” said stoked Flores.

Marcelo Simões got the second position. Basically he repeated the same run of the qualifying, showing moves to almost all directions, such as a full extended tsunami and a cool shoebox. Burlew rode real good, finishing in the third place. The fight between the American and Simões was tuff. Burlew showed sick combos with perfect execution, like a (huge) cliffhanger to no hander.

On Doubles Gilmar Flores and Sebastian Mejia were the best ones. Derek Burlew and Octávio Mello, who were the winners in 2008, finished in second. The Bergamini brothers, Giancarlo and Gianpaulo, were the third.