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Breakfast in Berlin
Skateboarding Vert Prelims Recap
By Eric Kirkwoood
Nestled beneath the historic and monolithic monument known as the Brandenburg Gate, vertical maestros from around the globe congregate for the preliminary round of the LG Action Sports World Tour Berlin.
Yesterday, Jake Brown, Renton Millar and I rode the train to Juergen Horwarth’s stylish flat on the east side. We spent the day checking out the standing section of the Berlin wall, experiencing the bohemian stylings of the artistic locals and just getting some of the East Berlin flavor. Juergen was an awesome guide showing us around town and ultimately ending up at a sweet skatepark (thanks for a great session, Tobias!).
Today, Juergen, Renton and Jake wreaked havoc on the Vert ramp! Renton had a solid run complete with a 540 ollie to truck bonker. Flow-man that he is, Juergen made a nice showing. His mute 540 was notably memorable - big, even and just badass! Speaking of 540s, Jake Brown’s tailgrab version is shockingly long - meaning he traveled it so far that I had a watercloset break during the hang time. Add some flip mute and indy, a dash of lip and you got a run.
Chris Gentry basically did 5s until he proved his point and bounced. Terence Bougdour had a full bag of tricks - mute and rodeo 540s, bodyjar, various flip grabs etc. Terence is a likeable guy off the ramp and I think he was surrounded by German fans and taken to a rave somewhere.
Sascha Muller couldn’t hold it together to complete a run, but was able to squeak into the finals along with nollie maniac Octavio Neto and Jussi Korhonen.
Anthony Furlong's run included a solid array of grabs and liptricks, a kickflip mute, kickflip indy, Madonna, tail grab 360, kickflip indy to fakie and fakie 540 all done with a smooth easy style that Mr. Furlong is known for. He was visibly frustrated that he ended in 6th.
Mathias Ringstrom is a really good skateboarder . . . and he ranked first today. Mathias had a full pull, which included a Cab heelflip, a kick flip indy, stalefish 360 and tweaked out aerials. He finished his run with some noseblunt variations.
Tomorrow the finals . . . stay tuned!
»»View the official results from this contest
