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Danny Mayer
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Winners: Danny Mayer, PLG, Rob Lorifice
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PLG
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Danny Mayer Takes His First Skate Vert Victory
ASA Action Sports World Tour - Cincinnati
By Jared Souney
After a few events in the second place spot behind Pierre-Luc Gagnon this year alone, it's safe to say Danny Mayer was probably getting a little sick of seeing his good buddy PLG nudging him down to the lower podium position. And I mean that in the friendliest of competition ways. But you knew he was hungry for the win. The previous two events of the ASA Action Sports World Tour had been down to the wire in skate vert. Danny Mayer had held the lead, and then PLG would come out swinging and take the wind out of his sales. But the contests were so close, you could tell that it was a matter of time.
Cincinnati was Mayer's time. He flat-out killed it, and landed kickflip McTwists in not one but three of his four runs. And he put in some serious work throughout the day. A fall in practice had him bleeding from his forearm, and then another fall in one of this runs had him hobbling and icing on the deck. These were hard slams as well. But he was able to focus and put it all together. It came down to one last run for Pierre-Luc. He started big dropping into a tre-flip, and followed that up with was to be a 720, but lost the board, and that was that. Mayer had his first Pro vert contest win ever. Not bad at all for the oldest guy in the finals (Danny and Neal Hendrix are both 36).
But don't forget the third place finisher Rob Lorifice. On his third run in he put together ten walls including a rodeo 540, that made for one of the loudest crowd roars of the day. Other young ones like Adam Taylor and Zach Miller put together solid runs of their own. Thanks to Adams incredible mullet haircut, it's safe to say this is the first time we've seen a second generation pro (Zach) and a Kentucky Waterfall (Adam's hair) in the same vert final.
The question now is can Mayer hold his winning momentum. You know PLG is going to be back stronger than ever next time around. But Danny has a taste of what it's like to be on top, so you'll have to stay tuned throughout the skate vert season to what happens.
Check out the Skate Vert Gallery on BFD.com
