Sheckler & Houston aren't able to beat out some of the old guard for the top spots in today's skate street qualifiers. Joe Morahan © Lat34
Cole, Lutzka, Koston Show the Field how it's Done
Aug 29 2006 / Los Angeles, CAThe skate street course was split up into three pieces for today's qualifiers - the manual pads/small ledges, the pyramid, and the four-stair-set. The pyramid showed itself to be the perfect starting point for everyone to get started in the three heat, seven minute jam session format. 11 year-old Nyjah Houston destroyed the pyramid with backside flips, huge kickflips, and big backside ollie to fakies.
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The next section was the manual pads/ledges. The guys tore this apart. Koston's kickflip backside tailslide to fakie on the ledge, Jereme Rogers' tailslide-270-out, Sheckler's 5-0 to backside 180 on the coping lining the top of the bank - this section went off.
The four-set was the last section skated. The energy had steadily risen and this proved to be one of the best skate sessions the X Games has ever seen. Between the rail, the two ledges and the stairs themselves, the spectators of this event got their fair share of trickery. Nyjah - backside tailslide to fakie, frontside nose blunt, kickflip frontside boardslide, Koston - nollie heelflip, backside tailslide, backside nose blunt, switch backside flip, Sheckler - backside smith, kickflip backside 50-50, cabellerial, everyone had a list like this. Billy Marks threw down an amazing 360 flip to frontside lipslide on the rail just as the "time's up" buzzer blew that marked what was probably the high point of the session.
In the end, the young guns Sheckler and Nyjah, weren't able to overtake the old guard of Koston, or Reynolds, and Chris Cole & Greg Lutzka took first and second respectively. The top nine from today will go on to join Paul Rodriguez (golden ticket, winner from last year) in the skate street finals which take place tomorrow.
- Cody Allen
