Gorge Games to be on TV
The Gorge Games went off in Hood river last weekend. We didn’t cover it – Estes, this was your time to shine! Looks like it will be broadcast by Fox Sports Networks August 18 – 22. The Gorge Games featured slalom and and bowl-riding skateboarding, plus wind surfing and a bunch of other Extreme!™ sports you’re not interested in. It’s kind of like a localized X-Games for Hood River, Oregon, which if you didn’t already know, is supposed to be one of the premier spots for wind powered water sports. It’s a major event in Oregon tourism. I heard legendary skater Tom “Wally” Inouye was heavily involved in the Gorge Games this year. So far all I have is a little slalom coverage. The photo above is from a Flickr stream belonging to Carvethebowl. There’s also video footage after the jump where you can see one of the Fox cameramen following the action on a skateboard. The announcer is mildy amusing. It’s almost golf-style reserved, polite and quiet, except broadcast over a loudspeaker. - Thanks to Judy Oyama for the tip. That’s her on the left.
Slalom finals at the 2008 Gorge Games in Hood River.
What would happen if you added a hoola hoop?
Congrats to local Skip Marcotte to winning 2nd place in the Open slalom, he’s like 2nd in North America right now or something. Not bad for a guy who didn’t even think he would qualify.
The events went off awesome and the bowl jam was frikkin’ epic. Estes is indeed born to broadcast and I won’t be surprised when he’ll be on Sportscenter sometime in the future.
The announcer is mildy amusing. It’s almost golf-style reserved, polite and quiet, except broadcast over a loudspeaker…
Hey, that’s me, Jack Smith doing the announcing. Hmmm, golf style you say. I think the skaters should be the center of attention, too many times I’ve been at skate events where the announcer seems to want to be the “star”.
Yep, Wally” was involved in putting on the event as was Gareth Roe, both did great work.
Good point Jack. You’re announcing style made an impression because usually it’s some guy yelling into the mic repeating “Back in the day we used to get rad with this guy… blah blah blah…” Announcing a skate session has got to be a hard job to do without being annoying. Watch the old NSA vids and it’s the same thing.