Syndicate's Jamie Goldman wins the Battle at the Fort at the Red Bull Vozi B.R.E.

Belgrade, Serbia

Jamie Goldman (Santa Cruz, SRAM, RockShox) wins the battle at the ancient Kalemegdan fortress on the outskirts of the Serbian capital of Belgrade at the first international mountain bike slopestyle contest in this part of the world. Goldman had a perfect run, and battled Lance McDermott for the win. Goldman clinched it with the sickest backflip off a massive step-down; about 20’ out and 20’down, the biggest flip of his life. McDermott pulled off a perfect front flip, the biggest yet of his career.Goldman started his run with a big back flip over the first box and continued with a tailwhip on the spine and a no-footed can-can off the ladder. On the kicker option over the big step-down from a higher to a lower fortress wall he executed the massive backflip that had earned him top score in qualification, and went on to a superman seatgrab on the final box. He felt he had a great run and that he couldn’t improve upon it so choose to not take his second run. “I’m stoked with my run, especially considering the wind. It was a lot of fun,” said Goldman.



Syndicate teammate, Nathan Rennie, also competed. Coming off of a fantastic downhill season, he capped off his year at the fort, having a fun time and putting on a great show for the crowd, and worked the media with many live television interviews. The run he put together was not enough to make the final eight, but he expected that, and left the winning to teammate Goldman. When he saw the playback of Goldman’s flip he was amazed as everyone and exclaimed, “Goldman is the GOLD MAN!!”


The week started off by flying into Belgrade and arriving at the Hotel Moscow in the center of town. Walking down the street to explore the city had us all wondering in amazement at the sheer, vast numbers of beautiful women. I mean it was ridiculous. No one would believe it unless you saw it for yourself. A trip up and down the street looked like a catwalk of supermodels just waiting to be discovered.




The next day the locals took us out to the local dirt jump spot and the guys had a blast. It looked like the blueprint for “Rennie Land”. There was a roll in with good size jumps, a portable foam pit, and this was the best thing, acres of dirt trails for the quads. The boys ripped it up, and Rennie was especially commanding of the quad. Straight after we made a jaunt down to the local kart track for some hot laps. After a hot shower, a trip to the “Boulevard of Beautiful People”, in the land of the “Perfect Body”, the guys played a fun game of hot chick in the hot seat rating the locals as they strolled past. They will be ruined forever in the grading scale when they get back to the ordinary world.


Goldman’s win was just the lead in to the cranking party that Red Bull threw for the competitors. Stragglers dragged back to the hotel at all hours, and one or two might still be missing. Big thanks go out to the Red Bull crew, and Tarek Rasouli and Anne Baltes for creating this event and pulling it off in a big way.

Final results:

1 Jamie Goldman (USA) 35.1
2 Lance McDermott (UK) 33.8
3 Niki Leitner (Austria) 27.5
4 Pascal Breitenstein (Switzerland) 26.3
5 Mischa Breitenstein (Switzerland) 24.8
6 Damjan Siriski (Czech Republic) 22.9
7 Ralf Schupp (Germany) 19.5
8 Brandon Semenuk (Canada) 15.0


Thanks to the Syndicate sponsors:

SANTA CRUZ BICYCLES

SRAM

RockShox
Truvativ
Avid
DT Swiss
Kenda
PUSH
Crank Brothers
Chris King
WTB
Clif Bar
Troy Lee Designs
5Ten

And Jamie’s sponsors:

Giro
Spy
NorCal