Rain fails to stop play at skate event

Occasional rain and persistently threatening skies couldn't dampen spirits yesterday at the launch of the Nutrilite Extreme Challenge in Taipei yesterday.

The two-day event is a meeting of Taiwan's best amateur in-line skaters, skateboarders and BMX bikers on a half-pipe and in a street arena. The in-line skaters will compete today against some of the world's top professionals in the sport who have come to Taipei from the US, Europe and Japan.

To open the event yesterday, after a speech by Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), five of the pros from abroad -- Sven Boekhorst, Shawn Robertson, Ryan Dawes, Matt Lindy and Beni Huber -- put on an impressive demonstration of their skills on the 3.6m half-pipe.

The Taiwanese skaters observing from below or on the top deck of the ramp got a taste of what they would be up against today, as Boekhorst and Huber completed flawless runs combining long grinds and huge airs.

Matt Lindy caused jaws to drop in the crowd with his 5400 spins, while Shawn Robertson gave everyone a fright by jumping over the ramp's top landing deck and stalling on its railing, coming precariously close to going over the back edge before jumping back onto the ramp.

The Taiwanese in-line skaters' strong point, however, tends to be in the street-arena competition.

In that event, 53 competitors were given a 55-second run to execute as many tricks as possible over a course that combines various sized quarter-pipes, railings and walls.

The skaters concentrated most of their effort on the largest of the quarter pipes, at about 1.7m, trying to get as much air as possible to clear 2m of flat and land down a second ramp.

Points are accumulated according to the difficulty of each trick and whether or not the skater actually landed and continued rolling.

Some of the skaters were going for broke yesterday, attempting back flips, forward flips and 5400 spins.

The crowd favorite and Taiwan's undisputed in-line skating king Jacky Chen (陳奇權) raised the bar -- as he has at previous competitions -- by landing a back-flip with a full twist. Pumped up from his success in the first round, Chen was setting his sights on giving the pros a run for the prize money today in the finals.

"There's no comparison with those guys on the half-pipe. But in the street arena, I think we'll be on equal footing. I think I have a chance," Chen said.

Placing second in the first round of the in-line skating was 13-year-old Cheng Chung-ta (鄭鍾達), who shocked the other competitors with his aggressive style despite his small size.

Cheng surprised even himself with his ranking. "This is my first time competing against grown-ups, so I feel great," he said.

The poor weather wreaked havoc yesterday with the event's schedule, causing the in-line skating event to be shortened to one run per skater, instead of two and forcing the postponement of the skateboarding until later in the evening.

In the skateboarding, the Huang brothers Huang Yao-te (黃耀德) and Huang Chun-chin (黃俊欽) are expected to walk away with the first and second places -- but they face tough competition from some rising stars in the skateboarding event and from Canadian Vaughan Neville in particular.

There was some confusion last night, however, as many of the skateboarding competitors left the site before their runs, apparently expecting the event to be postponed until today. Those who did remain skated cautiously on the slippery surface.