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Juergen Horrwarth: Hometown Hero!
Skateboarding Vert Finals Recap
By Eric Kirkwoood
With storms hovering ever so close to the Brandenburg Gate (site of the Berlin LG Action Sports World Tour) through most of the day, it was anyone’s guess whether the vert skateboard finals would happen at all.
Mathias Ringstrom, who found himself in first after yesterday’s prelims, was looking skyward shaking what looked to be a primitive rain-making stick as the prelim results would have stood as finals in the event of a rain-out. The guys got their lines dialed and, as luck would have it, game time came with favorable weather and ready riders.
Otavio Neto, although unable to complete a run, was successful in showing the proper way to execute just about every amazing nollie variation and then some. His nollie one foots were especially impressive at head height. Sascha Muller of Frankfurt found himself in a similar situation of inconsistency. However, Sascha skated well enough in practice and in his runs to convince everyone that he shouldn’t be overlooked in Paris next weekend.
Jussi Korhonen of Finland definitely had a decent showing and pulled some nice maneuvers in his second run, including various 540 grabs.
Jake Brown was going so big on everything he did that inevitably he blew up in both runs. Jake’s landed tricks were bold and brilliant enough to put him into 7th. Renton Millar had a full second run, which started with a huge roll in assisted backside ollie (we’re talking hang time). In Renton’s 1st run, he also threw in a nice no grab kickflip, which is always enjoyable viewing.
Terence Bougdour had two fully packed runs with a variety of airs including mute and backside 540s, heelflip indys, heelflip frontside airs and varial airs for good measure.
Mathias dropped his “rain stick” and exchanged it for a shred stick, on which he went to town. Mathias did various spin flip variations like half-cab heelflip indys, cab heelflip indys as well as some really tweaked airs and blunt goodies. Mathias came out in 4th.
Anthony Furlong came back from a sixth place finish yesterday and into the top three by doing what he does best – linking technical tricks and making it look nearly effortless. Combinations such as backside 360 tailgrab to cab tail grab to kickflip indy to fakie aimed to please . . . and did.
Chris Gentry chose the roll in as his starting point, nailing bionic loping rodeo 540s. Chris was a flurry of 5s, big backside 360 tailgrab to fakie, bodyjars, 360 varial airs and more. Fine work by Mr. Gentry to a 2nd place finish.
On to the man of the hour (drum roll please) . . . JUERGEN HORRWARTH! It would be hard to find someone to disagree with the statement that Horrwarth has one of the prettiest styles in vertical skateboarding today. Juergen was absolutely explosive throughout his first run, which was all he needed to take the cake. His backside 540 to mctwist combination was brilliant, stylish and confident. Juergen’s win in his hometown was well-deserved and fitting. Congratulations!
»»View the official results from this contest
