Three days of kick-flips, big airs, and 360s came to an end yesterday as the Asian X-Games Qualifying event concluded last night.
Organizers deemed the event a success as 115 competitors took part in three events: BMX bicycling, in-line skating and skateboarding. Approximately 3,000 spectators were at Shinkong Mitsukoshi's Hsin Yi branch to see it.
Though the number of entrants was considerably smaller than that of the Asian Xtour's previous stops in Shanghai and Manila, the overall quality of competitors was surprisingly high. Just 35 entrants registered and only 7 of them were juniors.
That means that the odds are fairly good for competitors, when considering that the top two qualifiers in the adult segment and the top junior qualifier receive air fare and accommodation for the culminating event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from Jan. 20 to Jan. 26 next year.
"Taipei has higher-caliber skateboarders than other Asian cities. This is because the industry is more established here and there are more places to skate," commented X-Games judge and professional skateboarder, Sasha Steinhorst.
Top finishers in the skateboard competition include Cho Chun-wei, Chen Chia-hui, and Kang Che-wei. Steinhorst was impressed with all of the qualifiers -- and especially with one female entrant, Chu Pei-yu who took fifth place.
"I didn't give her any `chick points.' She deserved her score because she performed tricks like the 50-50 ledge and she also kick-flipped the box."
Steinhorst believes that Chu could do well in X-Game events in the US as well.
Apart from judging the skateboarding competition, Steinhorst took time to wow the crowd with rail slides, kick flips, and other tricks.
Similarly, other judges performed double duty in their separate disciplines.
Mark Owen judged the BMX segment and also performed some jumps, while inline-skating judge Takashi Yasutoko donned some skates and grabbed big air of his own.
But even these pros were upstaged by late entrant Jay Miron, who just happened to be in town supervising the production for his company, Macneil Bicycles, and decided to throw some of his BMX stunts into the show.
"Miron just stopped by and showed us all up" said an exasperated Steinhorst. And in fact, Miron did just that as he executed his signature 360 tailwhip and no-handed backflip to conclude the demonstrations and the event.
The local action-sport athletes who qualified at this year's event now have another two months to recover for the finals in Malaysia -- and those who didn't qualify can look forward to seeing the finals on television.
To the surprise of the onlookers as well as all the organizers and supervising judges, just one individual was injured during the three days of competition -- a BMX rider who slightly injured one of his hands during a practice session.
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