April 20 - 22 Louisville, KY

The vert finals weren't the only thing going on Saturday. Earlier that day the street prelims took place. With both the Salomon and USD teams on tour in Europe the door was left open for a couple of the rookies to show what they're made of. Chris Fleener, Jon Murakami, Cameron Card and Adam Killgore all came out and represented. Chris Fleener even made the finals in his first ever, pro competition.

After a night dealing with unidentified falling strawberries, a gay French waiter and a game of quarters that over marinated the majority of the players the final day of competition arrived before I was ready. Street finals and too much time in an airplane was the plan for the day, so I stumbled into it with reckless abandon. I'm trying for the life of me to think of something remarkable about the finals, but I really can't. Everyone skated well on a bright orange course that seemed to be designed more for bikes than anything else. There were very few rails and a lot of transitions. Brian Murphy had an extremely strong run with some of the biggest tricks of the day, including a 360 acid drop to the bottom of a gapped wedge. Jason Stinsman who can now throw a double backflip at will pulled out a very impressive second run to capture the third spot. Santiago Azpurura, who has probably the best style I've seen skated good enough to take home second with tricks like a wall ride along the side of a bauer box and some smooth switch-ups. Jaren Grob again proved that when he is skating well he is extremely hard to beat. He took home the gold with his usual go big or go home style and his trademark corkscrew 900 over the launch box.

The B3 in Louisville had some of the greatest crowds I've ever seen at one of these events. It's easy to see why this was ESPN's third year there.

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