World Cup Skateboarding

On Friday we held the Street finals, and everybody had a good time sessioning the course which made for a great vibe. Congratulations to Austen Seaholm who qualified 3rd on Thursday and stepped it up in the finals to earn his first, well deserved XGames Gold Medal! He also earned the KIA athlete of the day award! His first run of 2 was flawless and filled with lots of technical combinations throughout the entire course, including tech, board control combos, and unique lines in the tranny zone. Austen also stepped it up on the big Hubba ledge with noseslide to switchcrooks, and a noseslide 270 shuv out near the end of his run. The Silver Medal went to Fabrizio who rose up from a 7th place qualifying, and ruled the Schenzen gap with smooth and stylish cabs, backside 360 ollies and 1/2 cabs. He frontside flipped the 1/4 and also had crooked grinds and frontside tailslides to to fakie on the big hubba. The Bronze Medal went to the #1 qualifier, Carlos de Andrade. Carlos had 2 amazing and nearly perfect runs on Friday in the finals, only to fall at the end of time on both runs, on his backside nollie 360s on the big bank. Other than the falls, he was a skating machine. He threw 360 ollies and big nollie 180s and even a kickflip over the Schenzen gap. He also stepped up to the gap to big rail with a frontside lipslide.  Other standouts included Berlin's Juergen Horvarth put together some great street tech filled runs with style to finish 4th. Rodolfo Ramos who qualified 2nd with a jacked knee, went big over the Schenzen gap with frontside 1 footed 180 ollies, and mute japan tweaks to flat. He also pulled hard flips over the flat gap, only to fall a few to many times trying a very risky and difficult frontside noseblunt slide down the big rail in the finals. It was a great comp, and everybody skated hard and put on a great show for the excited Chinese fans. To celebrate we were running about 20 deep and got all of the podium guys and other skaters out to a Brazilian all you can eat Churascaria in downtown Shanghai! A big thanks goes out to Lee Jay our local skater, judge and spot caller, for taking us out this night and to a great all you can eat Sushi 5 star spot the night before. Fun times and Shanghai nights!

On Saturday we held the Vert Prelims and the #1 qualifier Andy MacDonald put it all together on both runs, rolling in the big roll in to big tweaked out airs, 3 different types of flip tricks, a backside crail to tail over the channel, frontside gaytwist, and four 540 variations, including Mctwist, body varial, and a lein frontside rodeo over the channel. #2 qualifier Adam Taylor also rolled into big airs, 540's, stalefish frontside gaytiwst and 3 flip trick variations including one of my favorites, the cab 360 spin with a heelflip indy grab mixed in. Qualifying 3rd was Brazilian Marcelo Bastos, who skated the best I have ever seen him. He has a big bag of flip tricks and this year he added 540s to his runs. He did 4 different 540 variations including stalefish grab, indy, over the channel and a frontside 5! Renton Millar skated solid as always and got the #4 spot. Juergen Horwarth blasted smooth airs and stayed on for a solid run and the #5 spot. The weather is starting to get a little drizzley, so we will cross our fingers and keep our hopes up to get our final vert action going tomorrow.

The rains passed through the night and by Sunday morning the winds had calmed, so the scene was set for the Vert finals. As I described below, all of the top skaters had some great runs in prelims, and once again everybody put together good first runs, but after round one, Andy MacDonald would be in the lead and would prove to be unstoppable once again. Even though Marcello Bastos was skating better than ever, pushing his limits, and flying high with great combos, falls in his runs would keep him off of the podium. Renton Miller put together a no falls run with a great mix of 540s, flip tricks, airs and body jars to take the Bronze. Adam Taylor also had a great variety of high flying back to back 540s, flip tricks, spin ticks and a solid 45 second run to get the Silver medal. Last years winner, and the #1 qualifier, Andy MacDonald aka 'Mr Consistent" had 3 perfect runs with all of the right moves adding 720s to solidify his Gold medal spot once again. After the comp we all hit the SMP park for a fun session of shredding one of the biggest concrete parks in the world. Senn was getting lines from local ripper Nate to go over the doorway lines both ways in the massive 22' pipe. Spanky was alley-ooping the TnT windowsill line, and carving up the backside of the cradle Drehobhl backside 180'd. Renton, Juergen , Jussi and Jimmy Beck all padded up and ripped the biggest section of the park with ease. Andy Mac had some fast lines, big enough to dominate the 16' channel with huge frontside airs and even a kickflip frontside air over the massive channel. The session kept going until the dusk set in and the night began to fall. Then it was time to hit the town that night, and get ready to do some sight seeing and shopping for cheap bargains, (CDs and DVDs for a buck!) tourist style the next day! Thats how you do it when you are in Shanghai! The dollar is not very strong too many places in the world anymore, but here in China you can still get alot of bang for your buck! Thanks to all for another fun week!  Check back for more updates, stories and photos at our next stop in Beijing next week.
Keep on Rolling, D.D.

For complete results click below...

Asian X Games '09 results

Click for AXG '09 Gallery...pics by Duncan, Sasha and Dayne Brummet.

AXG '09 Gallery