2007 Vans Invitational Skate Park Prelims - Portland, Or - Greg Lutzka, Austen Seaholm, and Wagner Ramos are pushing themselves hard to progress their own skating this year, each hoping to end the winning streak Ryan Sheckler has maintained on the AST Dew
2007 Vans Invitational Skate Park Prelims
Portland, Or - Greg Lutzka, Austen Seaholm, and Wagner Ramos are pushing themselves hard to progress their own skating this year, each hoping to end the winning streak Ryan Sheckler has maintained on the AST Dew Tour for the last two years and on the first two stops of the 2007 Tour.
Lutzka came closest in Vans Invitational Skate Park Prelims, nailing tricks like a tre flip and a huge frontside kickflip 270 over the hip. Seaholm’s tech wizardry brought him close too, with bafflingly complex combos like a nose manual g-turn to frontside rock-and-roll and an attempted frontside flip late flip that might have done the trick if he’d made it. Yet once again, Sheckler held the day.
Sheckler’s first run score of 90.25 beat Lutzka and Seaholm by nearly five points, much to the delight of his screaming fans. The recent debut of the trailer for his new MTV reality skate soap Life of Ryan has Sheckler’s screaming fans out in even heavier force than ever before, and they vocally showed their sentiments when he ended up not taking his second run, apparently because of an injury sustained in the one minor mishap in his first run. Thinking a few steps ahead of himself as he approached a quarterpipe, Sheckler miscalculated and edged off the side of the ramp. The fall didn’t keep him from nailing the biggest trick of the night, a massive frontside kickflip transfer over a huge hip gap he’d been working on in practice all day, but he ducked out before his final run.
Assuming he’ll be back in action for the Finals, he’ll have his work cut out for him. In addition to Lutzka, Seaholm, and Ramos, he’ll have Danilo do Rosario, Fabrizio Santos, Danny Fuenzalida, Jereme Rogers, Chad Fernandez, Rodolfo Ramos, and Paul Rodriguez to contend with, on a course that favors the diverse styles of each of them equally.
Ryan Sheckler at the 2007 Vans Invitational Skate Park Prelims
