 |
 Takeshi Yasutoko's level of skating is unparalleled |
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 The LG World Championships captures the best of the best competition inline
skating anywhere |
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 Fabiola DaSilva raises the bar for all
female athletes |
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 Sven Boekhorst progresses Inline on
many levels |
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 The Yasutoko Brothers have played a
big role in Inline progression |
The Inline Firing Squad: ASA Events Still Carries the Torch
by Todd Seligman
Inline skating, once the crown jewel in the action sports world, has now been banished from the network-owned action sports competitions and left for dead… except nobody told the inline skaters. Now ASA Events provides the only major arena for inliners to show us all the meaning of progression.
Watching the Extreme Games way back in 1995, one could not have predicted what the future would bring. One thing seemed quite certain though: inline skating was definitely a big part of that future. There were more inline skating events in the first X Games than any other single discipline! BMXer John Parker remembers “Inline used to be bigger than everything else combined and, then the bottom just fell out.”
Fast-forward eleven years and the landscape today is markedly different. The network-owned action sports events like the X Games and the Dew Tour and even the now-defunct Gravity Games have all abandoned inline skating. But ASA Events and its high-profile LG Action Sports World Tour and World Championships still carries the inline torch.
Like any industry, the world of action sports is governed by the laws of supply and demand, but there is some very palatable skepticism from the world of inline skating when a senior ESPN executive responsible for the X Games went on the record that “progression is the number one criteria” for a sport’s inclusion or removal in that event. Yet the first signs of inline being removed from the ranks came in 2002 with the removal of the women’s events from the schedule. This was the year immediately following the spectacle of Taig Khris pulling the first double back flip in X Games competition. That doesn’t seem like decline in progression.
And to say that the inline women somehow are not progressing is preposterous. In September of 2005, Fabiola da Silva became the first woman to pull a double back flip in competition. Where did she perform this remarkable feat? At the LG Action Sports US Championships.
Around the world, the inline faithful are passionately progressing their sport to ridiculous new levels. Flipping, spinning, grinding and jumping farther – faster than any other action sport. It would seem to be the model of progression yet you’d have to be among the faithful to know it.
So, what happened? If lack of progression did not doom inline to a declined status, what did?
Politics. Complacency was systemic. Skateboard, BMX and FMX athletes saw no reason to defend inline because it simply wasn’t cool. And yet there were elements of inline that demanded respect from athletes of other sports.
Pro Skateboarder Mathias Ringstrom agrees in saying “ There are a lot of haters [of inline] still but Fabiola kicks ass and those Yasutoko brothers are amazing. They make everyone look stupid.”
Meanwhile, as ASA Events created and grew the only truly global action sports series: the LG Action Sports World Tour and World Championships, they saw no reason to exclude inline skating. On the Action Sports World Tour, inline often attracts some of the largest crowds. BMX rider Tom Haugen sums it up well “I think all the major contests should include as many sports as possible- there are a lot of kids out there who inline and ride flatland and would like to see them on television.”
“Inline skaters were a lot younger than BMXers or Skateboarders back then,” Says Kevin Robinson. “I heard a lot of people from the big events complaining about having to babysit… you know, with the rollerbladers just being disrespectful and wrecking hotel rooms and stuff.” Now most of the top inline skaters have grown-up.
Could it be that even though we don’t see inline at the network-owned corporate events, inline is still cool?
“It’s cool for them” says pro skateboarder Andy Macdonald, “This IS their tour.”
“People don’t realize that it is still big in Europe and the crowds there still respond to it.” says Ringstrom. These days, the only place to find out is the LG Action Sports World Tour and World Championships where the level of progression can only be described as stratospheric. Inline skaters are performing unheard of moves like the Tokyo Drift (a double back flip 360) and pushing their sport further than ever.
Could inline be in the midst of resurgence? Keep watching the LG Action Sports World Tour and World Championship to find out.
