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Tobias Does Paris... With a Skateboard!
Skateboarding Street Finals Recap
By Eric Kirkwood
Once again Mother Nature has smiled down on the LG Action Sports World Tour. This was the morning of the finals for the Pro Street segment of our worldwide contest series. Eighteen skaters from various parts of the world including Brazil, the USA and various countries in Europe and the UK converged for an entertaining and competitive test of street skills, for part of the event's $130,000 prize purse in cold hard cash... well, checks actually.
After two heated runs, each skater giving his all, the top five were evident. Marc Haziza of France broke ahead of the pack in his first run starting with a 360 on the big box jump. Marc also got tech with a 360 flip and dug deep into the 90s vault with the crowd-pleasing Salflip to fakie on the big quarter pipe.
Ross McGouran of Harrow, England who first got the attention of this tour last year at the finals in Manchester where he stoked crowd and judge alike with his finely tuned technical prowess, today was no exception. Ross skated fluidly throughout the course and launched each box with extra height, speed and style and capitalized on a standout run by throwing a huge 360 backside grab over the jump box with no sign of deck-check in sight.
Juergen Horrwarth, who was victorious in his hometown of Berlin, Germany at the World Tour vert finals last weekend once again found himself attaining podium status today in street. Juergen started a brilliant run with a big air to late tail grab pointer over the jump box then ripped through the course with big ollies, kickflips, 270 transfers up the stage and a smooth boneless on the quarterpipe just for fun.
Chris Oliver, after a less than impressive opening run, followed up in his final run with a technical extravaganza that left a huge impression on the judges. Mr. Oliver of London dropped into his run via 360 flip straight into a kickflip backside 50/50. Chris' run also included a big kickflip frontside grab on the quarter pipe and a rock to fakie which he calmly flipped out of... Cheers!
Our first place finalist was none other than Munich's own Tobias Albert who celebrated his new baby with a perfect run. Dropping from the big quarter for speed, his Japan air over the funbox led to a well thought out run utilizing most of the obstacles. Albert frontside boardslid the funbox's grindbox (and later 360 flipped the box itself) and rocked the combination of the contest - blunt 180 on the quarter pipe to hardflip fakie on the opposing quarter and back to invert on the aforementioned quarter. WHEW!
Great street finals here in beautiful Paris. Thank you to our top finalists and all of the competitors that made this contest a success- Guillaume Caraccioli, Vincent Touzery, Alexis Greusara, Marie Amigent, Jo Chabaud, Andy Scott, Andreas Weigert, George Agonkouin, Jose Manual Roura, Rodney Clarke, Marco Lambertucci and Fabio Sleiman.
»»View the official results from this contest
