History Made at the 10th Year of Vans Pool Party

The energy around the bowl was beautifully chaotic as the global skate family gathered to witness the bar of transition skating rise during the 10th Vans Pool Party. The park was packed to the brim, cameras lined nearly every coping block, riders prepped with various rituals. Salba stretched on the Duncan, Duane Peters stumbled around playing a harmonica, Bucky sat in the corner with his hood up, tracing lines with his eyes.

The day kicked off with the masters division where Darren Navarette held the key to lines and style. He filled his runs with creative Heelamonster combinations including a caballarial heelamonster. Steve Revord charged full speed with his usual smile, adding layback air and invert variations into his technical bag of lip tricks. Bruno Passos conquered the division with technical lines filled with tech tricks like 5- 0 fakies around corners.

MASTERS:

1     Bruno Passos
2     Steve Revord
3     Darren Navarette
4     Josh Nelson
5     Brian Patch
6     Jed Fuller
7     Bennett Harada
8     Lincoln Ueda

Each year, the cut for the pros tightens. This year, only 12 qualified and the crowd missed out on heavy hitters like Zach Miller, Marcelo Bastos, Austin Poynter and many others. The semifinals were a whirlwind of standout contributions. Trey Wood pleased the crowd with his effortlessly fluid style, smith 270s through the corner and 360 slobs into the corner. The sound Alex Sorgente’s tail made was jarring as he descended from perfectly extended 5 ft Madonnas and rocket airs.

Charlie Martin threw his own flyaway style into the mix with lengthy nosegrind stales. Collin Graham gave the combi a Colinoscopy (stalefish Egg Ellguerial). Nolan Munroe was skating well after his comeback from surgery and did huge mctwists on the face wall to set up for lofty Madonnas around the corner. He also did airwalk fakies, 360 lein airs and gapped from the Duncan into the round hip. Dalton contributed with back to back padless 5 variations in the middle of runs filled with tech lip tricks. Andy Mac pulled crail disasters out of his bag.

Heimana Reynolds, who qualified 2nd behind Chris Russel, was a crowd favorite. His runs contained high speed front smith to 5-0s, 50-50 270s through the corner, huge sean penns and sugarcanes. Unfortunately he was bucked off of a high speed back tail and had a lapse in neurons on the flat bottom and had to go to the E.R. Everyone was very grateful to see him after he came back to the contest a few hours later with a clean bill of health.

The room erupted as they witnessed the phoenix that was Alex Perelson’s first run in semi-finals. It was filled with huge Kickflip Lein airs, high speed 5-0 fakies over hips, Alley-Oop 5-0s and there was a moment where everyone seemed to hold their breath as Alex was nearly bucked off of a sticky back smith through the corner. Many have been following his Alex’ progress as he regained control and strength over his life. Everyone was grateful to see his true talent shine once again and he completed full runs! Perelson made it to finals!

Next the legends took the stage and paved the way to the pro finals. Eric Nash “the dark horse” wowed the crowd with uniquely grabbed indy airs, fully extended back bonelesses and consistent runs. Steve Caballero used nearly every inch of coping the bowl as he wove together tricks that slid through every crevice. He wowed the crowed with his namesake, the Caballerial and came in 2nd. Chris Miller graced the combi with his talent once again. The way he humbly glides around the bowl always leaves everyone mesmerized. Miller put elegantly tweaked Nosegrab Lein Airs, properly poked Indy Nosebones and swift lipslides through corners into his runs. His first run in the finals linked each hip and corner with big hip and corner airs, grinds and tail slides. It is always a treat to see Miller put it together under pressure.

LEGENDS:

1     Chris Miller
2     Steve Caballero
3     Eric Nash
4     Tony Magnusson
5     Nicky Guerrero
6     Christian Hosoi
7     Mike McGill
8     Eddie El Gato Elguera

The “halftime show” of amateur winners was fun to watch. Brighton Zeuner got to demonstrate her combi mastery and her newly-perfected frontside ollies. Poppy Starr came of from Australia to blast big backside airs and weave together strong lines. Asher Bradshaw did a 900 The excitement continued to grow into the finals. Top qualifiers were joined by past winners such as Bucky Lasek, Rune Glifberg, Omar Hassan and Tristan Rennie. Bucky tweaked huge corner airs to fakie, Rune heelfliped into his frontside airs, Omar rolled out into a manual that turned into a tailslide through the square corner.Corey Juneau consistently made full runs featuring huge alley- oop frontside airs over hips and perfect fs nosegrinds through corners. Josh Rodriguez had amazing lines with rare tricks such as burntwists, losi grinds, high-speed front boards over hips and front 5050s to fakie through corners. Chris Russell defied death with every trick. He threw huge fastplant slobs, judos and even ollie to fakies into disasters. He bonelessed into frontside inverts and tailgrab reverted out of nosegrinds. He skated so hard his board literally exploded as he was coming in from a frontside air disaster. Somehow he was able to continue skating on someone else’s board in his next run.

Pedro skated like a man possessed. He blasted each trick with every ounce of his being, often landing halfway down the tranny but always recovering in time to keep his furious pump. He threw himself into huge melon 5s, 360 stales and into tweaked out alley-oop stales over the hip into the round. Pedros back tails were so fast it looked like his upper body always had to catch up with the sheer speed of his slide. Tom Schaar skated with impeccable precision all day. He started each run by blasting a melon 5 and during his best run he used that as set-up for a kickflip indy over the square hip. His lines incorporated every corner and hip with tricks like alley-oop mutes over hips and beautifully tweaked front stales into corners. He also had a very elegant alley oop fs ollie over the Duncan hip into the shallow. He took his line to an air to fakie over the Duncan hip into the round where he spun a flawless 720. Tom put many of these types of clean technical runs together to earn him 1st place in the pro division.

And if 900s, exploding boards, Colinoscopys, Perelson comebacks and K.Os weren’t enough, the show continued past time in true skateboard fashion. A few years back, Sergie Ventura tried to cap off the pool party by gapping from the square into the round. He has gotten the closest to doing so but he transferred over the hip as opposed to actually gapping over the deck. Pedro gave it a few tries after finals and it did not even look close. However, the excitement of the crowd, Pedros desire, and Matt Boyster’s close attempts accumulated into a historic moment. Finally, Pedro flung himself 7 feet over the deck and everyone watched in anticipation as Pedro hung on. The crowd began to cheer before he even set it down, it was clear that he was going to ride away. As he crossed the round everyone went wild; they began screaming, jumping, throwing chairs and bottles into the bowl. Matt Boyster was not going to let a flatbottom of dripping waters and sticker backs keep him from getting Pedro’s back. He dropped in and made it right after him! It was truly a powerfully historic moment in skateboarding: another seemingly impossible feat has been conquered. Twice.

PROS:

1     Tom Schaar
2     Chris Russell
3     Pedro Barros
4     Cory Juneau
5     Tristan Rennie
6     Omar Hassan
7     Rune Glifberg
8     Joshua Rodriguez
9     Bucky Lasek
10     Alex Perelson

 The Full Results can be found over here on World Cup Skateboarding’s website