Vans Downtown Showdown: Tylenol Street Gap

Wors by Ryan Clements
Photos and Captions by Rob Meronek

Aaron Suski - frontside noseslide

I gave Aaron Suski one of those surfer accidents - 360 flip with an arm bitten off

Brian Sumner - backside flip

Can you believe Nyjah Huston still has a few years left before becoming a teenager? As usual, he's doing grown up tricks like this back smith across the ledge

Sean Malto is Girl's new am. He rips and has a fantastic hard flip. This is a smith grind across the ledge

Know your pro skateboarders. How many can you pick out of this line-up?

Corey Duffel - 360 flip

Look around on the internet for video footage of this. It was pretty insane. Chris Cole - double backside flip

It's amazing how Chris Cole can do anything on a skateboard but not look all robotic or whatever. This is a perfectly executed backside 360

It only took Bryan Herman a few tries to make this kickflip frontside nosegrind

Bryan Herman catches his hard flips at 90 degrees kind of like a backside shifty flip

Angel Ramirez - backside tailslide

Angel Ramirez - back smith

We got started a little bit late because the Zero team was running behind schedule. They had just flown back to California from Canada the night before, so they didn’t get to stay near the event site. This meant that none of them even got any practice time. I was walking Jamie Thomas around to the different obstacles and explaining the format to him and he said, “I think that we should just leave.” I knew he was being sarcastic, but at the same time, seeing all of these obstacles for the first time with about 1,500 people standing around and getting no practice probably threw a bit of pressure towards the way of the Zero team.

The Tylenol Street Gap got things started off properly. It was the least intimidating obstacle of the Showdown, but things still went off with a bang.

Bryan Herman – He ended up winning it by knocking out so many difficult tricks, including his head on the side of the building. With a bleeding wound, Herman managed to take it with a kickflip fs nosegrind on the ledge sticking out as the banger with me.

Antwuan Dixon – Antwuan may have skated, but I don’t remember what he did.



Brian Sumner – Sumnermate nailed all of the classics over the gap with a pop-shuv, bs flip , and a nice looking impossible.



Aaron Suski – Suski pulled the bs flip and 360 flip over the gap.




Jereme Rogers – Jereme did more switch tricks on the ledge than I can remember, but I specifically recall switch frontside tailslides and smiths.



Sean Malto – He must have done something since he ended up in 6th place, but you got me on what it was.



Billy Marks – I know that Billy did a great 360 flip over the gap.
Matt Bennett – His bs 180 nosegrind-come out forward was killer.




Corey Duffel – Corey did a kickflip over the gap going the wrong way, which was super-gnar, along with fs 5-0ing the ledge the wrong way, too.



Angel Ramirez – Angel subbed for Ethan Fowler who looked pretty rough that morning. I don’t know if he was sick or hungover, but Angel did a sweet backside smith in his honor.



Chris Cole – Ryan Smith was supposed to skate this one with him, but it ended up being just Cole out there representing Zero. That’s okay though, because he backside double kickflipped over the gap, along with 360 flips, frontside flips, and so on, earning him a second place finish.

Chris Haslam and Cooper Wilt tied for last. They were both working on stuff, but I don’t recall anything getting landed.

Jeremy Wray – The fs 360 ollie is a go-to trick for JWray and he did it over the gap with ease.



Nyjah Huston – The little rasta-man is unbelievable. He had killer bs tailslides across the ledge and a bs 50-50 kickflip out, amongst many more moves.

Tylenol Street Gap Team Results
1st	Girl	82.33
2nd	Foundation	78.00
3rd	Birdhouse	74.00
4th	Toy Machine	69.83
5th	Element	68.00
6th	Baker	66.00
7th	Zero	44.00
8th	Almost	0.00
Tylenol Street Gap Individual Results
1st	Bryan Herman	91.33
2nd	Chris Cole	88.00
3rd	Jereme Rogers	87.67
4th	Corey Duffel	81.33
5th	Nyjah Huston	78.67
6th	Sean Malto	77.00
7th	Brian Sumner	75.67
8th	Angel Ramirez	74.67
9th	Aaron Suski	72.33
10th	Matt Bennett	71.00
11th	Billy Marks	68.67
12th	Jeremy Wray	57.33
13th	Antwuan Dixon	40.67
14th	Ryan Smith	0.00
15th	Chris Haslam	0.00
16th	Cooper Wilt	0.00