Guys Street

Around fifty pro's were at this year's finals but only thirty made the first cut to have a chance to make the top fifteen cut on Saturday. if this is too confusing for you to undestand i will fill you in on the thing's that you are wondering about. Ronnie Creager was one of the biggest stand out's of the weekend if you were paying any attention during practice. Ronnie did not make the top ten but was a strong contender with some of the weekends most difficult lines and trick combo's. Practice sessions are usally all I watch when I don't have to judge a contest since there is no pressure on the pro's and you can just see all of them ripping and sometime doing a five minute run while swerving through fifty other guys all doing the same thing. Stand out's in the top ten this year were Chet Thomas who killed it with perfect swtch fronside flips over the small hip. Coming back over the same hip with perfect hardflips. Chet also pulled kickflip noseslides and switch kickflip noseslides in his run's. Dan Pageau skated to some crazy french hip hop music, it may of been hard to understand but it went quite well with his flawless run that gave him a nith place finish. Speaking of crazy music Rodil Jr. skated to what could of been brazil's latest version of "Every Rose has it's Thorn' a Posion classic incase you were wondering. Rodil was going for the "big point's" he hit the eleven stair rail 3 times in one run a lipslide, backside lipslide and a switch boardslide. Rodil may of placed higher if he didn't pick up his board every time he made a rail trick and run back to the top of the stairs to get another rail trick in like a hyper kid at a sticker toss. I have never seen a contest won that way and I hope I never will. Rodil must of had trouble with the course to of skated it this way but walked away with eight place. Rob Dyrdek skated the course quite well. Rob is always smooth and has got so many stylish tricks to keep him in the top 10 at any contest. Some of my favorite tricks that he busted in his run were the nosegrind to over krook transfers off of the bank ramp to the flat bar tranferring Rob to the top of the cement stage area. Rob also did the same trick but backside on the flat bar on the small pyramid. A nice 180 nosegrind was pulled in his run as well of a lot of other smooth selection of Rob's big bag of tricks. Chris Senn did 50-50's and 5.0's on evrything in his run finishing it off with one of the contest's biggest fronside boardslide across two of the big Jersey barrier's dropping down to flat. Yeah Senn! Carlos De Andrade was the smallest man on the course with the biggest backside nollies over the hip I have ever seen in person. Carlos had a flawless run with 360 flips over the small pyramid, 360 ollie over the small pyramid hip, k grinds and skated as fast as Chris Senn. Colt Cannon is more consistant than you will ever be so stop trying right now. I have no idea why Colt is as good as he is, he probably dosen't even know. I know the guys at Element know and now the judges and crowd know quite well since Colt shows why he is the rookie of the year. Colt did frontside nosegrinds down the ledge that 49 of the 50 pro's did a 50-50 down. Maybe Ramptech knew that someone could actually do a trick down this contraption other than a 50-50, actually I doubt it. I will just blame Colt for just being that good and he deserves the complement from the strong showing he gave to finish in 4th place this weekend. It's time for the top three guys and I must say when watching this and judging this it was really hard and even more difficult to decide who ripped harder for the grand prize of $18,000 dollars. Ed Templeton has been winning contest longer than some guys in this event have been skating. Ed shows you why age doesnt matter and that he still has something to offer with his amazing skill that he has perfected over the years. I hope Ed still rips this hard when he is forty years old that would be a great thing to see. Ed had a perfect run including his signature nose bluntslide, boardslides to fakie on the big jersey barrier, smith and feeble grinds on the smaller rails. No flip tricks were tried in his runs which makes his skating a little bit more safer than the top two contenders but a well deserved third place goes to one of my all time favorites. Eric Koston is no stranger when it comes to standing out in a contest. The day before this contest I watched Eric skate around the course trying to figure out a line or maybe trying to find something that was actually fun to skate. I don't know what he was doing actally but right before he finished one of his run's he snapped his board on a backside lipslide down the eleven stair rail. Eric got himself a new deck and took his last run that was flawless until he tried the backside lipslide again. It lookd to me as if the paint off of his new deck was a little grippy on his first attempt so Eric went back up the steps to give it another try and executed it text book style. Eric started his run off with a nice backside tailslide to fake into a fronside half cab kickflip over the pyramid hip, 360 flip into the bank headed right into a nose bluntslide on a pyramid ledge. Eric also pulled a perfect frontside kickflip over the big Jersey barriers and finished his run off with a perfect switch fronside flip on a small bank just for fun. One fall in Eric's run could of kept him out of the top spot this time. Bastian Salabanzi is from Toulon France and is only 15 years old. Bastian had a perfect run which included kickflip 5.0's huge backside 180 flip's and nice bigspin kickflip's over the hip. Bastian did some of the hardest tricks I have seen in person all weekend and still managed to pull one of the most difficult conest run's together to take the top spot. Only a few seconds after time Bastian did a kickflip frontside boardslide down the eleven stair rail perfect. Does it still count people were asking, who cares Bastian just won the contest without it, so that was just a specail treat for all of you who came to watch this weekend. See you next year!

Guys Vert

When I first looked at this years vert ramp I knew that only a few people would easily adapt to it in time for the contest. The ramp had no wall's that were facing each other more than a few feet in width. The ramp had a 8ft channel, and behind the channel was a transition wall that for some reason has a few feet of flat bank then went back to transition which let to vert. To put it in simple terms it was a purposely built kinked transition? When you came off of this contraption you were faced with two escalating extension with pool coping that never escalated back to the normal height of the vert ramp. Only a few guys skated the kinked transition in their runs and a few hit the escalators, some great moves went down over the eight foot channel since it had coping that that was skateable over the eight foot channel. Rune was trying kickflip backside lipslides over this ridiculous channel and Bob Burnquist pulled a one footed backside smith across this in one of the run's that he bailed in. Anthony Furlong pulled stand up frontside nosegrinds across the channel every time while Bob did them backside and switch. Renton Millar kickflipped the gap in his run, Mike Crum alley ooped a frontside nollie heelflip over it as well. These were some of the highlights that took place over the eight foot bridge of death while the other mainly steered away from it and a few just did basic 5.0's across it. Bucky Lasek pulled a blunt to fakie on the kinked wall and did some very nice frontside 540's and regular 540's to put him in 3rd place. I did see Bucky pull a perfect lean 540 over the 8ft channel which I have never seen done before. Bucky didn't pull out as many flip tricks as he usually does and he was on point with the tricks that he did. Rune Glifberg almost won the contest with his first run. Rune did his signature stylish tailgrab air's and beautiful 540's. Rune did a kickflip indy, cab heelflip, a huge backside ollie to tail up the escalator and almost pulled a swith flip right at the buzzer. I have no idea what ollieing over an 8ft gap into the vert ramp to start your run off every time is worth but I would guess it is about ten times more than whoever is just starting there run's off by dropping in. Note everyone in the contest started there run by dropping in except Bob. Bob didn't waste any time after starting his run off this strong he went right into his bag of endless tricks. Bob pulled out a kickflip indy on the extension, a kickflip indy to fakie of the other extension, a switch kickflip indy on the flat wall, switch nosegrind over the 8ft channel, Mctwist, fakie to fakie 540, and a few other great tricks to walk away with $18,000. After the contest we all went to Bob's restaurant in Encinitas where he had some milkshakes named after some of his favorite tricks. A few people ordered the 900 others got the hurricane. The food was great and Bob's trophy was already on display. I just hope next year Bob names a plate after Steve Ruge "Shrewgy", it would have to be a 30 inch pizza made with every cheese on earth. I hope everyone tunes into NBC to catch what they missed this weekend it is worth taping and viewing over and over. If not check the WCS site for the nearest contest coming to your town. See you there!

Womens Street

Each year the girls contest get's a little stronger in entry's and the skill level. This year the top five girls out of the twelve girls that skated the contest were all at the level to take the top spot. 5th place goes to Jessie Van Roechoudt from San Francisco. Jesse has the dopest sponsors of the girls and she is the one most people reckonize from all of her coverage over the past year. Jesse has a cool style and a smooth trick selection to be able to put it all together at any contest she skates in, a few step off's put her in 5th place this year. Cindy Gorset is from Portland and use to have a mohawk that stood a few inches taller than Tony Trijullio's old one. Cindy's raw but smooth style is always a pleasure to watch and she had some nice backside 180's over the hip. Cindy's run was not enough to get her on to the podium but a well deserved 4th place was enough to make her walk away with a smile. The top three girls were no joke at this years Van's Triple Crown finals. Lauren Perkins stood out the most to me because I have never seen her skate before. Lauren had a flawless run with perfect kickfilps and used the whole course as well as anyone could of. It was nice to see little LP in the top three, yeah Lauren. I have no idea where El Granada California is but if you know maybe you should try to look up Amy Carson because she can rip! Amy skates with an effortless style and can take first place in any girls contest with ease. She has power style and all the tricks that will make you say damn a girl is better than I am. Amy walked away with second and she was last years winner, by no means was she slipp'n so watch out for Amy in the future. 1st place goes to Vanessa Torres. Vanessa has won every girl's contest that I have been to this year and she never seems to be having a bad day. On each occasion that I have seen her skate she pulls perfect kickflips, k-grinds, 50-50 any rail or flat bar. I even saw her looking at the 11 stair rail, but did't try it in her run. Vanessa is on fire and continues to amaze me and everyone that is attending the girls contest. Vanessa walked away two thousand dollars richer and her third solid first place of the Van's Triple Crown series. Thanks to all of the girls who skated in the contest this year and hopefully I will see twice as many girls attend next year.