X Games Austin is a Wrap: Behind the Scenes On The Boardr
Published 6/8/2014 by Rob Meronek
I hope you caught all that on ESPN for the Street Finals for both men and women. It was a fun and ripping afternoon of skateboarding here in Austin, Texas. After Grant Taylor skipped town and gave up his spot in the cut to Alec Majerus who had just missed it yesterday, I was certain he was going to take it today. Then Nyjah came with new tricks and of course his usual bag of destruction. Get the full week's results here. Congrats Nyjah, Lacey, and Pedro for gold in Street and Park this year. For Real Street, Clint Walker won with Mikey Taylor taking the Fan Favorite.
Photos
It's time for an article on all the boneless variations so we can all learn what each one is called. Especially for me. This one's a bean plant that Tristan's doing on the tank.
The course is right on the straightaway of a Formula One racecar track. Back there in the distance you can see the turn leading in. This is the first time I've seen Jeremy Leabres skate in person. That's him on a frontside tailslide there.
This tank thing was pretty tough to skate with the super tight bank to tranny leading up to it, but some people made it look easy like Tyson.
Porpe was back in the judges truck making sure he got heated at every decision the judges would make.
Jason Rothmeyer, chief of the skate nerds with a calculator brain, was the head judge on this panel.
Shouts again to all the supportive parents out there. Tristan and his proud mom have been hanging out all week, too.
The way to exit the street course was through an area where the crowd could hang out and meet all the skaters as they were done skating. It was a great setup that got a lot of stoked to meet their idols. These girls were big fans of Letica like me.
Whenever we had some downtime, games of SKATE would go down in our garage bay office next to the street course.
Chase Hawk, a ripping BMXer from Austin, is a recent new client with Excel Management. He ended up winning gold in the BMX Park event this weekend. Congrats, Chase!
HiDefJoe got a Texas sized shark bite where he had to get carried off the course.
Ryan Clements and Andrew Cannon where the live announcers for X Games Am. The crowd watching was huge.
Grant Taylor dropped in on the podium for Park and dropped out of the cut for Street. That's how Alec Majerus ended up in there and in third.
Missing from this line up of judges is Paul Zitzer. Mike Sinclair, Bob Reynolds, Jason Rothmeyer, and James Craig all just wrapped up a few post-contest games of SKATE and are headed to some bangin' Texas BBQ now.
The scene outside of our offices after the Contest was over was a mob of kids hanging out with the pros and ams in the Contest, just sort of sitting around, skating a bit, have a beer for those of age, and more. That was a nice wind down.
Porpe is still trying to get the elusive 360 flip on lock. He seems to come the closest when someone makes one in a game of SKATE against him. It's still a guaranteed letter for him every time at this point though.
Then Bob comes and does it switch for Porpe. Thanks for the good times and great skating all week at X Games Austin 2014, ya'll.
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