The Red Bull X-Fighters qualifying round in Istanbul was canceled on Saturday morning after being postponed from Friday evening due to strong winds and heavy gusts up to 45 km/h at the location in the shadows of the Yedikule Dungeons castle in Istanbul near the shores of the Sea of Marmara.
The lack of a Qualifying round will not have any effect on the outcome of the main event on Saturday night because, according to the rules, the World Tour standings will be used to determine the rankings for the 12 riders in Istanbul, the third stop of the $1 million 2012 World Tour.
American Todd Potter, who leads the standings with 135 points from the first two stops in Dubai and Glen Helen (USA), will thus be the top seed in Saturday’s main event, which begins at 8:30 p.m. Levi Sherwood of New Zealand is second and Javier Villegas of Chile is in third. Fourth is Rob Adelberg of Australia, fifth is Thomas Pages of France and sixth is Eigo Sato of Japan. Those six riders will get automatic berths in Round 2.
The other six riders will open the main event by battling it out with 60-second rides in Round 1 for the two available tickets to Round 2. Wes Agee (USA), Dany Torres (ESP), Maikel Melero (ESP), Mat Rebeaud (SWZ), Blake Williams (AUS) and Jeremy Rouanet of France will all be competing for the two spots in Round 1 to advance to round 2 against the six higher seeds.
The winners of the four Round 2 matches will advance to the 90-second long semi-finals with those respective winners moving on to the 2-minute long finals.
Red Bull X-Fighters Istanbul: Qualifying canceled due to winds