Julian Christianson wins Hometown Heroes Amateur Skateboard Street finals – X Games 17 Update
The iconic X Games 17 action continued on Sunday, July 31, with the finals of Hometown Heroes Amateur Skateboard Street that went down at the Event Deck at L.A Live in Los Angeles, California.
Denver’s Julian Christianson managed to outshine his rivals during the finals to take home the gold medal and a USD $5,000 first-place cheque. Brendon Villanueva remained pretty impressive throughout the final but eventually had to settle for runner-up place,
collecting the silver medal. Dan Coe took the bronze medal to complete the podium.
The 22-year-old Christianson finished as the top scorer in the elimination round to confidently making his way to Round 1 of the 10-man semi-finals. His consistency and skating prowess allowed him to make the cut for the five-man finals. Other riders to
qualify for the final included Villanueva, Coe, Tyson Bowerban and Ryan Thompson.
The final, which was an 18-minute best-run-wins session, featured an intense head-to-head battle between Christianson and Villanueva for the gold medal. Both the riders managed to stay at par with each other and even as the final entered its final minute,
it was still anyone’s game.
Reaching deep into his bag of tricks, Christianson went all out in his last run, throwing a combination of Ollie nose-grinds and capping his run with a huge switch heel-flip down the big stair set. The run earned him a score of 88.33 points.
Villanueva failed to respond to his rival’s outstanding run and ended up conceding victory to Christianson after crashing. He finished with a best score of 86.66.
Talking to a reporter after the final, Christianson said, “There are too many good people. I think that, of those guys in the final, if all of them had landed their whole runs the judges wouldn't have been able to pick a winner. Everyone has different styles
so it's hard to judge that way in skateboarding.”
Even after winning the Hometown Heroes Amateur Skateboard Street championships for the fourth time in a row, the Denver-native was still soaring with modesty.
Coe finished in third place with a best-run score of 80.00 to take home the bronze medal. He seemed satisfied with the outcome of the final, though hoped to climb higher on the podium the next year.
Bowerban and Thompson finished in fourth and fifth position with a best-run score of 79.00 and 67.00 points respectively.
The four-time event champion, Christianson hopes to make his place in X Games Skateboard Street contest and compete against whom he considers as the real pros of the sport. Going by his overall performance in the discipline, he may get his wish granted next
year.
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