Apparently the anguished cries of old men everywhere resonated in the halls of ESPN. EXPN.com reports:
ESPN has decided to continue its 13-year tradition of vert competitions at this year’s X Games. Over the past month ESPN has engaged in many conversations with the X Games BMX and Skateboard vert athletes in an attempt to transition the Vert discipline into one featuring a skatepark course design. While many athletes were initially receptive to the idea, the majority of them have indicated to ESPN that they would prefer to compete on a halfpipe.
So vert skating is back from the dead. Who could have predicted it? I think it’s funny that the athletes were the ones the brought it back. More telling is the fact that they plan to go forward with the Superpark concept in addition. I have a feeling that the vert riders who don’t decide to enter Superpark are going to lose ultimately. I see this as a temporary appeasement of the talent so they don’t have a mass boycott of riders. Sure, they’ll bring back vert for one or two more seasons while they quietly build up Superpark until ratings prove they don’t need vert anymore, because there will be a whole other gorup of riders who won’t complain about the format change. Superpark sounds more fun to watch in my opinion anyway. Ha! Check out the photo credit on the image in the source. (They are rotating them.)
– Thanks to CretinNik for the tip.
6 comments
nweyesk8
shouldn’t it be X-tremepark instead of superpark?
conahan
I don’t think anyone was opposed to the superpark I think they didn’t want their job to be just riding that super ski-jump bullshit until the last vert skater is dead.
Concretin Nik
from the UNION-TRIBUNE (by way of Orezona)
… After ESPN announced its decision last week, skateboarders threatened to boycott the Big Air discipline. Big Air features riders swooping down a 60-foot ramp at speeds approaching 40 mph, clearing a 55-foot gap, then skating up another 27-foot ramp.
Asked if he thought the skaters’ threatened boycott impacted ESPN’s decision, longtime pro vert skateboarder Andy Macdonald of Pacific Beach said,
Kilwag
I think superpark is just X Games speak for NW style skatepark, or flow-bowl as some like to call it, where everything is different sized and connected. Of course I didn’t actually read the original ESPN superpark proposal so I could be very wrong.
Their take on the talent makes it seem like a wrestling league or something, with a fixed stable of performers not happy with a format change, say cage match vs. tag team. It would be like the Olympics saying “Well, we’re not going to have water polo anymore, we’re going to have 400m Butterfly stroke instead” and then the water polo players say “Well, we’d rather not do that, so just bring back the old event, Mmmmkay?”
My point is, there will be no shortage of skaters to enter the Superpark format. The vert riders should adapt or die, as that contest circuit is already on artificial life support as is. This is not my personal judgement on vert ramp skating, just my evaluation of the circumstances.
Mega ramp as a contest format seems like you are just asking for trouble in the form of more Jake Brown accidents or worse. If they want to do it as a spectacle then fine, but those guys can’t be making enough money for that.
orezona
I got that article from auggiedawg courtesy of sleestak.net.
Everybody poaches everybody.
Tom Miller
Vert is definitely dead. Proof? The photo for this thread is classic back lip butt sweat and you don’t see anything like that in Sheckler’s acne ad, right? Hell no. Bad for your image. Vert skaters get ass acne. Even ESPN knows that.