Hermosa Beach, California - June 11, 2000
The preliminaries of a street competition are when the skaters focus on consistency rather than pulling the big tricks out of their bags. However, the skaters are starting to become very consistent with their big tricks and are using them in the prelims. What this means is that the finals become extremely exciting and the skaters have to attempt tricks that blow your mind in order to pull off the win. Hermosa was a great example of this. The prelims, which offered some great competition skating, paled in comparison to the finals. In another international field of competitors, Wilfried Rossignol was able to come away in 10th place with a great run, which included a trick that stunned everyone around, including the judges. An Alley-oop soul to 360 to Alley-oop soul along the entire bauer box, Wilfried was even attempting a 540 to Alley-oop Top Soul on the same planter. He was able to land it in practice, but not during his run. Santiago Azpurua, from Caracas, Venezuela skated to 9th place with a huge 900 over the big launch box. In 8th place was Clifford Viljoen, the winner of street at the ASA in Rome, Italy. The always present, Mike Budnik was able to skate to a 7th place, by finding the highest object on the course and throwing and Alley-oop fishbrain on it. Next up was Sam Fogarty who skated well enough to capture 6th place. Starting the top five was the monster, Jaren Grob. Jaren qualified in third place for the finals, but wasn't able to put together an entire run during the finals. In fourth place from Redwood City, California was Brian Shima, who was able to get fourth place by pulling dangerous tricks like a Royale to Darkside Royale down the death box along the side of the roll-in. Louie Zamora was able to get third place with a run that was filled with both technicalities, like a Backslide-Kindgrind-Makio switch up, and lots of smooth style. Blake Dennis, who was in first place after the prelims ended up in second place, with a great run. He wasn't able to hold off the red-hot Sven Boekhorst, who took first place for the third week in a row, with a nearly flawless run that included a 360 flatspin over the subbox. The fun didn't end with the competition. Right after the runs were over, Jaren Grob felt the breath of inspiration and used only three attempts to complete a completely blind 900 over the subbox, rolling away to the thunderous cheering of the crowd.

Check out the vert competition