Courtesy of: The Morning News
By: Rosalie Klein
All week, young island athletes and international professionals have been participating in elimination rounds of the first Aruba Xtreme Games, taking place on the western outskirts of Oranjestad. The beach area adjacent the old Bushiri Resort has been set up to host BMX racing, BMX and skateboard acrobatics along with refreshment booths and a bandstand.
Beginning today, these extreme sports as well as free style windsurfing and kite-surfing will be conducted through this coming Sunday, with awarding of trophies to the winners on Sunday evening, at 7:00 PM.
Organized by the 2DMAX Foundation, the Aruba Xtreme Games has around 300 athletes of all ages, from Aruba and abroad, competing in some of the most demanding and thrilling sports, assuring a great show for spectators. Booths with snacks from sponsors Senor Frog’s and refreshments from TEC, including Polar beer, are set up around the beach.
Over the weekend, competitors in the windsurfing events will include Aruba’s own Max Lageveen, who is the World’s Youth Freestyle Champion, as well as pro windsurfing champions from Bonaire, Tati Frans and Kiri Thode, and Youp Schmidt from Holland.
Olympians Israel Hernandez and Jose Luis Primera from Venezuela and Andrez Jimenez of Colombia will be competing in the BMX rally. World famous kite surfers Bas Koole and Christophe Tack from Belgium will be battling it out on the waves and in the air. Surfers report the exceptional winds of this week resulting in ideal conditions for the most daring aerial acrobatics.
The beach will also have a “Kid’s Corner” set up for very young children, making it a fun day for all the family to enjoy participating or watching these “Xtreme” sporting events. The days will be filled with exciting activities on the beach and music from popular DJ’s: DJ Yeimy, DJ Diablo, DJ Big Rig, Masbango, Nutzbeatz. Visiting DJ’s from Holland and Curacao are DJ Funk D and DJ NRG.
The Aruba Xtreme Event also includes competitions with cash prizes for none athletes. There is a one-minute and five-minute video contest being judge by island video artists Ryan Oduber and a photo contest with Anwar Habibe, the event’s official photographer, deciding the winners in the “Xtreme Sports” and “Activities” categories. Photos and one-minute videos must be submitted via their website by end of the day on Saturday, April 4. The winners will be announced on Sunday evening. Videos must combine all the sports disciplines. The five-minute videos will be posted to the Facebook page; after one month, the winner, decided by technical quality and the number of “likes” will win 4,000 Arubian florins. Photo contest winners will receive 1,000 and 500 Aruban florin prizes.
A full schedule of events and entry forms can be found on their website: http://www. aruba-xtreme.com/ For up to the minute results and a photo gallery visit their Facebook page.
