Oct 15 Las Vegas, NV
The street competition at the ASA World Championships was set to one of the best street competitions ever, even before the skaters arrived in Las Vegas. As the course was set up it quickly became the largest and most impressive single street course ever designed for a rollerblading competition. The course offered an almost infinite number of lines; I myself came up with about 10 different lines in the first half an hour that I was on it. This was also the first street course that every single skater seemed to enjoy. Aside from a small technical adjustment (raising the rails a few inches) the course was perfect.

Sunday, was the day that the pros had their chance to compete for the $10,000 that accompanied first place. If you've been following the competitions this year, it should be no surprise to you who won. Sven Boekhorst walked away with yet another win this year and with this win, he has become the only skater to win what could be called the Triple Crown of Rollerblading. Sven has won The Gravity Games, The X Games and now the ASA World Championships. That's a lot of money in only 8 months time. Sven's run was as smooth as always and again filled with a lot of technical tricks that he never seems to miss. Following up Sven with yet another second place was Blake Dennis. Blake can always find the best lines in a street course. Combine that with the number of tricks that he puts into a run and he'll end up in the top three every time.

Thierry Lallemand, made a strong appearance at the World Championships. Thierry's big airs and smooth style moved him into 3rd place on his second run. Jaren Grob skated with his typical devil may care attitude and threw himself into crazy tricks like a launch to soul on the rail atop the fourteen-foot high wall. Jaren was in first place after his first run, but couldn't improve on that score during his second run and ended up in 4th place overall. Shawn Robertson was the only other skater to try and grind the rail on top of the high wall. He couldn't quite land it during his run, but still skated well enough to earn the 5th spot.

Nicky Adams took the sixth spot on the strength of his second run, and tricks like a super stylish 540 Liu-Kang over on of the launch boxes and a frontside farvegnugen across the gator gap rail. Louie Zamora brought his true street style to the course and came out with tricks like a launch to wall stall with a backslide to kindgrind back in. His switch-ups are so fast that sometimes it's hard to see all of what he does. Louie was able to stay in 7th with a solid first run.

Matt Salerno skated with his usual style. Never stopping to take a breath and skating as fast as possible across the course hitting every obstacle in his path. His trademark huge airs and grinds were only good enough to keep him in 8th place. Aaron Feinberg made a halfhearted appearance at the finals and only skated well enough to get 9th place with his first run. In his second run he only tried one trick and quit. Ryan Dawes had a rough couple of runs in the finals; he couldn't quite put his whole run together. Even tricks like a launch to sweatstance on top of the wall ride and a launch to true spin mizou couldn't move him out of the 10th spot.

On the women's side of things, an upset of sorts took place in the fact that Martina Svobodoba took away the number one spot from Fabiola. This isn't a huge surprise, since Martina has beaten Fabiola before. The rest of the field went like this. Fallon Heffernan took home the third place trophy and money, followed by Anneke Winter in fourth, Kelly Matthews in fifth and Deborah West in sixth.

The Street Best Trick competition also took place on Sunday, right after the street finals were over. In usual fashion for a best trick competition, the skaters went off. Some of the sickest tricks I've ever seen were happening all around the course. You had to pay attention or you were bound to miss a couple. The hands down winner was Wilfried Rossignol with a 540 launch to alley-oop fishbrain along on of the bowls. Both Jason Stinsmen and Matt Lindemuth threw double backflips over the launch box. Shawn Robertson launched up to a soul stall on the fourteen-foot high box and then jumped up to a top soul on the rail and dropped back into the quarter. Pat Lennen finally landed an acid drop from the high wall to a royale along the rail below. Even Robert Gurerro got into the action just for the fun of it with a launch to soul along the bowl grind box and then transferred to a soul down the huge start box rail. He hit it flawlessly and didn't even get a warm-up shot.

The action didn't stop there. After everything was finished a couple more skaters decided to show what they were made of. Jayson Reduta and Mike Radebaugh started skating the big start box rail. Mike threw out a top acid to backside royale, but was quickly overshadowed by Jayson and flawless alley-oop souls down the entire rail. Jayson didn't stop there. He then threw an alley-oop soul to top soul. A sick trick, which might just have been the trick of the weekend.