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(Sacramento, CA - September 5, 2005) The field of athletes
assembled for the BMX park competition was loaded with talent:
Ben Bressfield
,
Allan Cooke
,
Brian Gavagan
. But before
the contest had begun, fans and judges were already taking notice of
a young rider who had never even won a contest. Finishing the preliminary
qualifying round with the day’s top score,
Garrett Reynolds
, 15, of Toms River, NJ let everyone know his impressive riding
during the warm-ups was no fluke.
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Ben Snowden with an ice pick on the hitching post
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Of the many great tricks thrown on the Sacramento course,
Zack Warden’s
front flip had the crowd on their feet.
Mike Laird
and
Rob Darden
both
threw double whips, and
Scott Wirch
put together a sick line of stylish
tricks like an opposite 360 lookback over the box and a flair on the
quarterpipe.
Tom Haugen
of Minneapolis seemed intent on winning the park comp. Despite
perfectly landing a double whip and a suicide 360, Haugen, one of the
most technical riders in the world, had to settle for bronze. L.A. rider
Austin Coleman
put together a risky, but successful, second run that
included a one-handed tailwhip transfer, a one-handed tailwhip air and
a beautiful one-handed superman transfer.
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Street top-three (left to right: Tom Haugen, Garrett Reynolds, Austin
Coleman)
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Haugen’s consistency and Coleman’s creativity and difficulty
meant that Reynolds would have to take plenty of chances and land everything
cleanly . . . and Reynolds delivered. His incredible first run featured
plenty of big air, innovative lines, creative tricks and solid technicality,
and he rode cleanly from start to finish to finally pull together his
first pro victory and claim the MSS Sacramento gold medal.
From there, it was over to the vet ramp, where 16 riders battled in
one of the last open contests of the season before the LG Action Sports
USA Championships in Los Angeles later this month. With invitations to
the championship event at stake, riders stepped it up in a big way.
The vert ramp was like an archeological dig through the strata of BMX
generations from 38 year-old Jim Burgess to 16 year-old young gun,
Zack Warden
.
Shaun Eglington
came over from Worcester, England, and
Jason Branham
showed why SCRAP is still the nation’s premiere BMX skatepark.
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Vert winners (left to right: Jimmy Walker, Simon Tabron, John Parker)
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This late in the season, almost every rider was afflicted with some
kind of injury.
Koji Kraft
was nursing a hurt foot;
Jimmy Walker
was
riding through broken ribs.
Simon Tabron
wasn’t supposed to show
up at all, after his injury at the Dew Tour, but still there he was,
throwing everything but the 900.
Early in the competition, the quest for the top spot appeared to be
a two-way battle between British BMX superstar Simon Tabron and 2003
MSS Overall Champion
John Parker
of State College, PA. Parker was well
on his way to snatching victory out of the hands of the favored Tabron,
but when he hung up on a double whip halfway through his second run,
it was Tabron’s for the taking.
And Tabron took. A solid big-air run that featured back-to-back 540
variations netted Tabron his second MSS gold medal in as many events.
Parker’s fall dropped him to third and forced him to settle for
the bronze medal. Sneaking into the second podium spot with both opposite
and regular flairs, numerous barspin combos and some of the highest airs
of the day was Chicago rider Jimmy Walker.
Get
Results Here:
» Street
Photo Gallery
» Vert Photo
Gallery
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