 |
|
|
|
Gentry-fied Prelims
Skate Vert Prelims Recap
By Eric Kirkwood
The balmy heat of Virginia in June (which seemingly went unnoticed by skateboarding’s top pros) was the setting for today’s Action Sports World Tour Vert prelims. With a thirteen man field (and only ten moving on to tomorrow’s finals), it was a do or die deal.
Danny Mayer was the first standout of the afternoon with a back-to-back kickflip indy to kickflip mute amongst an array of lip tricks and airs and topped it off with a mute 540.
Sandro Dias laughs every time I refer to him as an astronaut, but the man SKYS! He traveled overhead half the ramp on lien and indy airs, backside 540s and wildly exaggerated 360 varial airs (a proven crowd pleaser).
Pierre-Luc Gagnon lead his run with a library of grabs followed by a smooth Mctwist and, in true technician form, added a cab flip indy, a nollie heel flip and a half cab nose grind to insure his place in the finals.
Jean Postec skated with confidence and style throughout his runs. Backside lipslides, various lip trickery, smooth ollies and a launched heelflip frontside air were pulled from his bag.
Like a rock . . . that was
Tas Pappas in the prelims. He was unstoppable with 360s, 540s and even a 720!! (hmm, do I smell a 900!?)
Jake Brown does a mean 540 tail grab . . . enough said.
Gentry was the king of today’s prelims. Chris has the biggest, slowest, most even rodeo 540 of all times! Along with the rodeo, he did tail 540s, backside 540s, flips and lipslides to top qualification.
Lots of shreddin’ in Richmond . . . the stage is set for tomorrow’s showdown.
