X-Games 11 Day Three: Vert

What the hell is that board Tas Pappas is riding?

Shaun White is getting good and his style has improved over the last few years. When I heard he was going to be trying 1080's, I thought it would be the grossest looking rollerbladerish trick done on a skateboard, but it wasn't too nasty looking. He never ended up making the 1080. This here is a backside air

Rune Glifberg - backside nosegrind over the hip on the bench. Now if the they really wanted to make it interesting, they should have put that bench on the flat bottom

In case you want to know how fat the vert skaters are, they give you their height and weight stats

Danny Way was walking around with a cane on Saturday, then on Sunday won the Mega Jump Contest

I can't believe Colin McKay rode away from this switch big flip revert over the channel. At first, he couldn't believe it either

Bob Burnquist - blunt fakie on the wall extension

Never seen this one before, but then again I'm not looking at vert too much lately. This is Bob Burnquist's 540 lien-to-tail

Words by Ryan Clements, Photos by Rob Meronek

The vert ramp was ridiculously gigantic. It was constructed by Team Pain and consisted of a 6’ wide channel, two opposing bowl corners with hips, and a really long extension.

You kind of have to be there to really get the experience of the X-Games. As practice is winding down and the Contest is about to start, the entire arena goes black and they play Metallica really loud. Then Felix comes over the mic and makes all of these crazy announcements of where you’re at and what you’re watching. It seems kind of cheesy, but I’m sure that the audience that it’s being marketed to really digs that type of stuff.

Actually, it may seem like I’m trying to cut on it, but I’m not. I really enjoyed the entire experience and the Contest itself was amazing. That’s what happens when you put all of those heavy-hitter vert guys together though. Here’s how it went down.

Vert Results		Vert Best Trick Results
1	Pierre Luc Gagnon	1	Bob Burnquist
2	Shaun White	2	Colin McKay
3	Sandro Dias	3	Pierre Luc Gagnon
4	Bob Burnquist	4	Sandro Dias
5	Andy MacDonald	5	Rune Glifberg
6	Jake Brown	6	Shaun White
7	Tas Pappas	7	Bucky Lasek
8	Buster Halterman	8	Jake Brown
9	Rune Glifberg
10	Bucky Lasek

I think that the Vert Best Trick was even better. They did a 45-minute jam. I guess the reasoning with the extended time period is that if you can’t pull what you’re working on within 45 minutes, then you’re probably not going to pull it.

The coolest part was the super-huge extension – it was 8’ tall and only 4’ wide – that was put up just for the Best Trick. So you’re looking at about 10’+ of vert at the top of that thing. It didn’t have coping either, which made it even more sketchy for Bob Burnquist’s blunt. Holy cow! His back foot was completely off when he came in, but miraculously he pulled it. (Rune did a fs disaster on it, but that didn’t get him in the top three.) That’s not what got him 1st place though, because he also did a 540 lien-to-tail, too! I’ve never seen that one before.

2nd place went to Colin McKay for a switch backside bigflip revert over the channel. It took him about 30 minutes to land it, and frankly I think that he was pretty surprised that it happened by the look on his face when he made it. But once he realized that he was actually riding away, he couldn’t have looked cooler.

Pierre Luc nabbed the Bronze. Did I just say “bronze,” as in bronze metal? Wow. PLG nailed the nollie heel Indy 540 for 3rd place. Once he caught the flip and came all the way around to complete the 540, he was just pretty much sitting on top of it and simply had to put the board under his feet. 1st in Vert and 3rd in Vert Best Trick? PLG is blingin’ this weekend. It’s definitely time for a new diamond ring.

I’m not going to even write about Shaun White’s 1080 attempts. Watch TV for that info.

Ryan