Until yesterday, skaters in Taiwan could only watch top-level skateboarding on imported videos.
But then Chad Fernandez, Chet Thomas and Jayme Fortune came to town and basically showed everyone, like, exactly how skilled one can become on a board with enough talent, perseverance and guts.
The three Americans came to Taipei on an Asian tour organized by a shoe company and put on an hour-long show of stunts that had the crowd of several hundred cheering and hooting.
The promoters had roped off a large section of the square behind the Hsinyi Mitsukoshi (信義新光三越) department store building and fitted the space with a small launch ramp, two large ramps at one end, three different height platforms and two long handrails.
The pros then stunned the audience by going through their long list of tricks to do on these standard street-style skating obstacles.
Jayme Fortune struck with a series of technical maneuvers and was consistently impressive for his consistency on high airs over the platform.
Chad Fernandez, meanwhile, landed probably the most explosive trick by jumping from one of the large ramps to the other over a 2m gap.
Chet Thomas, one of the veterans of the professional skating tour, managed several kickflip variations on one of the high ramps, but couldn't pull off a massive frontside 1800 kickflip off the small launch ramp despite dozens of tries.
Yesterday's demonstration was not a competition event, so the skaters felt free to try some tricks that they do not land with high consistency but that were obvious crowd pleasers, like Fernandez' ramp-to-ramp transfer.
The most technical trick, which occurred while the pros were on the course at the same time with some of the best local skaters and didn't catch most people's eye, was a beautifully executed hardflip on the large ramp by Thomas.
Those that did see it, though, were duly impressed and even more so by Thomas' nonchalant demeanor after landing it.
The pros offered a mixed bag of tricks that even non-skaters appreciated and technical maneuvers for afficianados.
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