Street Pics: Chris Johnson
Vert Pics: Toddtwist
Words & Snaps: Dickfingers
This year’s UKSA UK Championships has just drawn to a close, the ringing in my ears has subsided, the bar for sponsored skating has been raised once again and I’m slowly starting to regain feeling in my lower back…
Hosted by Adrenaline Alley for the second year running, all the usual suspects from the great and the good of UK Skating assembled this weekend to fight it out for the £10,000 purse.
After the success of last years event, the format remained almost identical, with the Qualifiers for both the Street & Vert on the Saturday and the finals held on the Sunday, predictably with some heavy duty hangovers and it goes without saying that the level of skating stepped up, even more than last year which is no mean feat.
I’m not going to give you a trick-for-trick break down as for a start they are boring to write and even more boring to read (plus my memory is shit) but it’s safe to say that the four judges had their work cut out for them as you can see for yourselves from the footage has already been edited and spilled all over the web.
SATURDAY
I spent the majority of the first day tending to the needs of the swarms of kids queued up for a Vans Waffle crafted with my very own hands, however I did peer over my sweet smelling stall long enough to see Ben Grove kicking the shit out of every obstacle in his path, Ross McGouran flowing about with speed and consistency and Daryl Dominguez, who spent all day dropping some rarely seen tricks with high, relaxed, laid back pop and cruised through to the finals.
After the 70 odd people in the street qualifiers had been wrapped up (and I ran out of waffle mix) everyone trundled over to the frankly terrifying vert ramp to check out the action there. Having been to a few vert events in the past year, it’s truly is amazing to see not only how far the new Vert breed has progressed but also how quickly they have reached this level..
Standing on the platform alongside guys that have been holding it down for years are a new breed of Vert shredders. Still years away from being able to legally drink, yet smashing every contest they enter. It says a lot when one of the competitors is an Xgames Gold medalist before his 15th birthday.
Considering that it’s only been a couple of months since Sam Beckett became the first Englishman to land a 720 and now he’s throwing them out in lines along with 540 Airwalks, which he said was the first one he’d ever landed apparently. It’s no surprise to find out who went on to win. The level that these guys are skating at is genuinely shocking. The Vert stalwarts Pete King, Scotty and Jim The Skin all held their own but young guns went higher and further with a seemingly endless bag of tricks with Sam Beckett taking 1st, Sam Bosworth in 2nd and Alex Halford taking 3rd.
Above right: Sam Beckett – Nose bone Indy
Above left: Alex Halford: Getting some and more! Right: Sam Bosworth – Tweaks a huge stale.
I know that this is meant to focus on the skating that went down but I couldnt really miss out the afterparty. As far as Im concerned the party is just as important as the skating. Last year Cates’ band Day Release subjected a poor unsuspecting pub to the sort of rowdiness usually reserved for football riots, so this year we had to relocate and went to a rugby club in the middle of nowhere. Predictably the skater to girl ratio was about 30:1 as it usually is at these things so dispensing with all pretence, it was decided to turn it into a gay disco.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much in one night as I did looking over the dancefloor and seeing everyone thowing some seriously suspect maneuvers to YMCA and Copacabana! I went home and woke up in the morning to find that someone who was staying in my room is really unable to hold their drink. Or bodily fluids for that matter. It also emerged that in their hour of need, toilet paper had been substituted for one of my towels… The dirty little bastard. Skidmarks should not be left on sinks. Especially not on mine… Ever…
SUNDAY
The Sunday kicked off with the Girls jam with some hefty moves dropped by Lucy Adams who ended up taking home the title and Mandy, the manager of Adrenaline Alley decided that next year she was personally donating £500 to the girls comp to boost their prize fund up. Righteous.
Below: Stevie Thompson drops a backside boneless off the extention rocking the CF.
Once the ladies had vacated the course the finals kicked in and everything was stepped up from the day before. The qualifiers went off. Daryl Dominguez, a regular face at Crossfire Jams, dropped some serious tech bangers including my personal highlight of the weekend: a backside 360 lateflip over the driveway in the jam. I can’t work out his skating: it’s fast, but so ridiculously smooth it looks like he’s in slow motion and he cruised into a respectable 5th overall. Grove was on a mission, giving 100% to every trick, with gap to 5050 and gap to 50 over the funbox and down the hubba as well as gap to front board and gap to back lip on the rail. Everything was pulled at about 60 miles and hour and with his usual scant regard for personal safety and nudity laws, whipping his shirt off and finishing in 4th.
Below: Snowy-Switch Frontside Heel
The top three were too close to call for me: Dan Wileman skated consistently throughout the weekend, dropping tricks in lines that he used to win the best trick last year (gap to front tail bigspin out) and thumping out rail bangers and perfect flip tricks at the drop of a hat. Kris Vile improved on his 3rd place last year, stepping up to 2nd using all of the course and banging out smooth lines with flow for miles. A well deserved first place went to Ross McGouran who also stepped up a place from last year, pulling off some insane tricks including a fs wallride pull in above the extension and kickflip back smith grind up the rail amongst many many others.
Below: Kris Vile-Frontside 360 Ollie
While the totals were being tallied, Grove stepped it up again for the best trick jam on the rail getting robbed on a flip back lip but still taking home some cash after landing pretty much every trick he tried gapping out over the funbox to the rail, and Harry Lintell and Dan Wileman killed the bank sesh with sw bigspin in and 270 front tail revert respectively.
Below: Caradogg Emanuel – Flip
All in all, it was another amazing weekend and once again confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt the utterly pisstake level of UK skating at the moment. Writing these things are so bloody hard as theres no way that you can do justice to the ridiculous skating that went down in a matter of hours and as amazing as the footage is, theres nothing that can beat seeing the tricks go down in front of your eyes instead of a 2inch square screen on a laptop. This time next year, get off your arses, get yourselves to Corby and scream yourself stupid to support the UK scene and I guarantee you definitely wont regret it (unless someone poo’s in your sink, then you might)
See you next year for more waffles and a Gay Congo Bum line…
Final Results
Mob Grip Bank – Best trick
1 Dan Wileman – Frontside 270 to Backtail Revert
2 Harry Lintell – Switch Bigspin into the bank
3 Carl Wilson – Kickflip Backside Five-0
Blueprint Rail – Best Trick
1 Ben Grove – Everything!
2 Flynn Trotman – FS Nollie Swith K
3 Jess Young – FS Blunt Shove it.
Street Finals
1 Ross McGouran
2 Kris Vile
3 Dan Wileman
4 Ben Grove
5 Darryl Dominguez
6 Chris Oliver
7 Neil Smith
8 Conhuir Lynn
9 Dave Snaddon
10 Dave Davies
11 Korahn Gayle
12 Vaughn Baker
Vert Results
1 Sam Beckett 465
2 Sam Bosworth 442
3 Alex Halford 414
4 Jake Anderson 404
5 Andy Scott 399
6 Pete King 384
Girls Street Results
1 Lucy Adams
2 Lois Pendlebury
3 Helena Long
4 Becky Jaques
5 Ellie Ford
6 Cora Stocker
7 Dani Mellor
8 Georgina Winter
Overall Street Results
1 Ross McGouran
2 Kris Vile
3 Dan Wileman
4 Ben Grove
5 Darryl Dominguez
6 Chris Oliver
7 Neil Smith
8 Conhuir Lynn
9 Dave Snaddon
10 Dave Davies
11 Korahn Gayle
12 Vaughn Baker
13 Tom Harrison
14 Flynn Trotman
15 Manhead
16 Carl Wilson
17 Trevor Johnson
18 Ben Nordberg
19 Harry Lintell
20 Tom Watts
21 Sam Pulley
22 Jason Cloete
23 Tom Shimmin
24 Dan McDermott
25 Alex Lally
26 Adam Howe
27 Rob Smith
28 Jake Collins
29 Scott Howes
30 Eddie Belvedere
31 Alex De Cuna
32 Caradog Emmanual
33 Marc Churchill
34 Mark Nicolson
35 John Bell
36 Steak
37 Greg Nowik
38 Jess Young
39 Alex Barton
40 Simon de Oliviera
41 Mark Radman
42 Felipe Falcin
43 Daryll Nobbs
44 Joe Habgood
45 Mikey Patrick
46 Paul Regan
47 Chris Barrett
48 Jerome Campbell
49 Adam Moss
50 Rogie
51 James Coyle
52 Ivan Rodriguez
53 Pete King
54 Snowy
55 Paul Silvester
56 Johnny Carter
57 Craig Smedley
58 Kevin McKeon
59 Karim Baktaiou
60 Ben Devine
61 Nicky Howells
62 Joe Lynskey
63 Matt boyo Williams