Mr. Almost Perfect

At the PlayStation Pro in Orlando Daniel Dhers was only 1.67 points short of being the first athlete to win all five AST Dew Tour events in one year. But the 23-year-old Venezuelan found solace in his third BMX Park overall victory in a row.

‘Misery’, a hit by the rock band Good Charlotte, was the official song of the AST Dew Tour 2008. Whoever chose it must have been thinking of Daniel Dhers. After 2006 and 2007 the two-time X Games winner caused his rivals at the BMX Park contest enough belly-ache. With four wins and a second place, Daniel celebrated his third Dew Cup in a row with superiority.

Dhers beats Dhers

That Daniel Dhers didn’t leave as the winner of all five events of the AST Dew Tour 2008 was due to Ryan Nyquist on the one hand; on the other due to Dhers himself. After the first run, leading as planned, a small mishap stopped Dhers from also winning the contest in Orlando after Baltimore, Cleveland, Portland and Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, he landed low on the quarter and slipped a pedal on his way back to the box, so he had to nix his plans for a can-can 720. With that, Dhers (93.33 points) finished the contest in second place behind American Ryan Nyquist (95 points).

Next goal: all five

X Games gold 2007 and 2008; AST Dew Tour winner 2006, 2007 and 2008: Daniel Dhers dominates the BMX Park contests as he chooses. In 2006, 389 points, last year 418 points, were enough for an overall AST victory. Now Dhers wants to be the first athlete ever – after scoring 485 points in 2008 – to bag five victories with a maximum of 500 points next year. He’d also be securing the US$ 75,000 prize money once again – that of course only being a pleasant by-product of his success. ‘Of course money isn’t unimportant,’ said Dhers, ‘but I’ve never competed in a contest for that. I just want to ride my bike and have fun with it.’