Hometown Heroes Finals at X Games 17
The street course at X Games 17 was wrought with shrapnel and skewers of metal ready to impale oneself on. Set as a construction site there was an immaculate disarray of floor tiles, rebar, I-Beams and radical cement chunks. There were plenty of obstacles mocking a broken-down alley way in some forgotten city. The rapscallion band of miscreants and shred heads who rocked themselves into these eighth annual Hometown Heroes Finals were not to be disappointed. And would not disappoint.
As if the fat cats and moneybags left this part of the city untouched for a couple of decades, the street course came complete with manufactured steam from the sewers like some fog off of Jupiter and was enough to give the street skater in all of us an emotional boner.
The finalists were ready to rock. Coming from all over the country, this was their Mecca. Like a marriage of man and board, minus tuxedo and bow-tie, these dudes are tided to their shred sleds like life partners. As the finalists took to the course, the Los Angeles heat cranked up.
Ripping scandalous maneuvers straight off the bat was Ryan Thompson. Ryan used the whole course like some sort of interpreter translating shred into English. For the X Games onlookers, making sense of Ryan’s speed and agility would take jaw-dropping consideration.
Coming in fourth was Tyson Bowerbank. Tyson pushed with speed and grace rocking out with backside 360 kickflips down the stair set and huge front 360s over the hip every try.
Dan Coe, from Minniapolis was our 3rd place contestant. Dan killed back tails on everything in his path. Kickflip in and bigspin out were just a couple of variations that Dan would juggle in the mix of his endless consistency.
Brendon Villenueva came in second. California resident, Villanueva ripped the roof off with hardflip backlips down the medium-sized handrail and heavy duty impossible to lipslides down the monster rail.
Like a landmine waiting for it’s time to strike, Julian Christianson held it all in for the final rounds. His consistancy and style made him a contender for the fourth year in a row. Taking home a 4-peat is no small feat. Julian slammed down every trick in his bag and in the end, he stomped a huge switch heel down the big set sealing up the win for the 4th time in his amateur career.
