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elderly man talking to his chums about
the Skatewave event at the exhibition
center. "They somehow defy gravity on
a huge wooden trough," he cries aloud,
as we all look over at him. Eddie decides
to comment, "Whadda ya mean, I
though they were building an ark."
10:17 a.m. I go to the CN Tower, sup-
posedly the world's tallest freestanding
structure. After finding out that they are
milking tourists $8.50 to take an elevator
to the observation deck, I snap a few
photos of the structure from ground zero.
10:50 a.m. I arrive at the Skatewave
Arena and the pro freestyle competition
is underway. On the floor is Jim McCall.
This guy's a master of difficulty and it
shows. He handstand tick-tacks, hand-
stand wheelies, 360° shove's-it, cruises
nose wheelies and much more to put
together a strong performance. Next to
style is Shane Rouse, a truly creative
skater from England who definitely
displays technical trickery. Shane blazes.
Reggie Barnes of North Carolina flows
about the slippery surface with English
handstands, stylish G-turns, and
assorted footwork. Greg Smith dances
about the floor with tough moves like
stalled space-walks and harsh rail-flips.
The Frenchman, Pierre Andre, shows
true consistency with handstand finger-
flip 180°s, one-wheeled space walks and
more. Pierre's definitely been busy
skating on his home turf. Representing
the East Coast freestyle populace,
Denny Flordan produces eye-catching
moves like ollie airwalks, rail flips, shove-
GULLWING
sliding shuffle rock 'n rolls, 360° roll-ins,
Texas plants and frontside inverts. When
Micke took to the air he was pulling 8½
foot method airs, alley-oop mutes across
the entire eight-foot extension and nose
bone frontsides. Tenth place went to this
Badman from the Badlands. Taking the
ninth place slot was Joe Johnson who
was previously injured. Joe returned to
vertical with a healthy assortment of
stunts like slob airs, varial inverts,
thrusters, fakie rock 'n roll sliders into the
channel and Phillips 66's. Travelling into
eighth place from Denmark was Nicky
Guerrero. This European professional
proved that he could play with the big
boys and take home some cash. Nicky
combined sadplants, frigid airs, front and
back channel plants, alley-oop. 50/50
grinds onto the extension and large front-
side airs to prove himself.
Monty Nolder took the usual "death
or glory" approach in the finals. He tar-
nished the lip with frontside and
backside Smith-grinds and six-foot
Madonnas that could make your ear-
drums explode. He also pulled out 360°
backside boneless ones, Smith-verts
and Christ/Noldairs over the channel for
the seventh place position. Ken Park
took the sixth place money with airwalks
over the channel, frigid to judo airs, anti-
varial Andrechts, Madonnas and his
ever-sickening tuck-knee eggplants.
Chris Miller piloted his board well above
the lip for fifth. He'd start his plan of
attack with a crossbone then blast into
an overhead fastplant followed by many
more aerials. Chris also pursued the act
of launching 12-Cabs to gay twists and
ollie to boardslides across the channel.
The fun seeker, Lester Kasai, gracefully
unleashed hurricanes, 360° body jars,
manuals across the extension, crossed
its, and hand flips. Out on top of the pack, Ken Park uses the lip with a fast footplant to top off a backside air. up lip slides and huge aerial antics. The
Kevin Harris gracefully steals the show
with a connection of moves like 540° shove-
its, 180° finger-flips, fine footwork, G-turns
and 30 or more tailspins.
1:00 p.m. Pro practice begins once again.
Most of these guys are geared up and rip-
ping the upper atmosphere above the
decks. A vast assortment of moves are
witnessed. The crowd is getting larger and
louder.
3:00 p.m.-pro vertical ramp competition,
the event most spectators are waiting for.
The competition format runs like this: each
skater has two elimination runs, the top 15
make the semi-final cut. The top five get to
chill out for 20 minutes while the lower
placing ten battle it out for five spots in the
final jam. The skate jam is hot. Even hotter
than it is on the roll-deck, where poor vent
ilation caused a mucho-humid atmosphere
for coaches, photographers and video
operators.
The five who made the fifteen cut but
failed to make it into the final jam were
blazing hard. Each had a couple of untimely
falls which kept them out of the final jam
but not out of the money. In fifteenth place,
Steve Schneer, the skater from hell or who
knows, put together a strong collaboration
of tricks which included ho-ho channel
plants, nosepicks to tailpicks, finger-flip.
frontside aerials, and Hessian rolls. Tom
Groholski ended up in fourteenth with Tod-
twists, ollie-to-grinds, big lien airs, and major
lip tricks. His close friend, Dan Wilkes,
mixed it up with fakie ice-plants across the
channel, hurricanes, nosepicks, frontside
r-n-r's and big eggplants for the thirteenth
place spot. The big man, Neil Blender,
dashed about the ramp with many lip tricks,
most of which I didn't know the names for.
Anyway, Neil received twelfth place for his
true creativity. The eleventh place spot went
to John Gibson who nailed down bone-
drechts, layback roll-outs, Indy nosepicks
and big boneless ones in fine form.
Ten skaters battled it out for the big money
in the final jam: Micke Alba was on fire. You
could see it in his eyes, his skating and his
approach to each run. This dude tore into
the lip with long, stand-up frontside grinds,
fourth place money belonged to Lester.
Tony Magnusson lofted himself about the
ramp with large 9½ foot method airs, gay
twists, lien to tails, one-footed mutes and a
couple of ho-ho plants for third place. Pull-
ing out all the stops for second place was
Mark Rogowski. Due to the earlier
encounter with local authorities, Gator
probably didn't get as much practice as he
had wished for. That didn't hamper his
skating today one bit. He blasted Gatairs,
frigid liens, fakie inverts, disasters, McTwists
and consistently blazed the structure with
a feeling of confidence, Residing in the top
spot once again was Tony Hawk. Cool and
collected, he dashed about and saturated
the ramp with airwalks to fakie, frontside and
backside ollies-to-tail, Indy-oops to
nosepicks, 360° sliders across the channel,
sadplants to Smithverts and large Japan
airs. During his final run Tony pacified the
boisterous crowd with an infinite bag of
tricks and then blasted into a 720° McHawk.
The audio level inside the arena was
deafening. Tony won hands down.
6:03 p.m.-awards ceremony. (Cont. pg. 91)
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