The first page of the Media Guide this year was titled, "X Games Environmentality™" I thought it was funny that they went through the trouble of trademarking the word "Environmentality." I bet the skateboarding intern who coined that phrase and is a fan of Element skateboard videos, has a desk job at ESPN now. By printing the media guide on recycled paper, putting out recycle waste bins, cutting trees down from a forest certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and various other environmentally aware ideas, the X Games is eco-friendly now. I wonder if the management is thinking about the environment when they hop into their G55 AMG to go to work in the morning. I guess it's their way of offsetting the emissions of the countless trucks and the massive energy consumption it takes to run the media machine that is, the X Games. Moving on... I should have took it as a bad sign when I received the email from ESPN saying no strobes were being permitted into Staples Center this year. Unlike previous years when they could care less if you came in lugging a strobe with a dish that was three feet in diameter, this year the geniuses at ESPN and Staples made the decision to charge the media photogs for strobes, seeing as how they banned us from bringing in our own. At $550 a day, it just seemed like a cruel joke that someone in my position would even consider paying that to cover an event that I'm not getting paid to do in the first place. With my wife and I expecting our first baby at the end of this month, $550 will buy a whole lot of diapers. I knew right after I read how much they wanted to charge that I would not be covering the Big Air this year. In a way, after seeing the replay of Jake Brown (the new man of steel) take his 50ft freefall to flat, I was kinda glad that I didn't go out, even, just to watch. As a skateboarder, seeing a fall like that isn't something that I think I would want to witness in person. For those that don't believe in miracles, believe.
Friday morning still radiated with comments about Jake's fall the previous night, but there was still more skating to be covered. After trekking across the Home Depot Center compound to the velodrome, I wanted to see how hard it would be to shoot street indoors. After seeing how they had the media set up, it was obvious once again that ESPN doesn't really care about the print or online coverage they get. They have the biggest media outlet covered, everything else is secondary. I hung around to watch Sheckler and Creager rule the course for a bit and then headed back to the vert ramp to shoot practice. Now, everyone that has worked X Games before (that's everyone who has had limited access credentials) knows that the best shots you get, are during practice. That's when you get free reign of the ramp. Most of the photos I shot of the weekend were during practice, well, the good ones anyway. I had fun shooting some of the men and legends of vert during the practice sessions. When it came time for the women's practice, we got to shoot about 20 min until the finals and were corralled back to the friends and family paddock behind the deck. My pick before the weekend was Mimi Knoop. She was just coming off a win at the Soul Bowl the previous weekend, and was skating better than I've ever seen her skate. As the gun sounded for the jam to start, Mimi came out swinging with big backside airs, fastplants, frontside bonelesses, frontside disasters, front and back inverts, eggplants and her go to, frontside airs. Lyn-Z Adams shot out of the jam gate with her big airs and even pulled a kickflip indy. Cara-Beth Burnside seemed a little uncomfortable on th ramp and didn't have the power she usually has. She still pulled most of her tricks and worked the ramp well. Karen Jonz, the relative newcomer to the scene, has a big bag of tricks including backside kickflip ollies. If she starts to skate a little more consistently, she will always be in contention. Holly Lyons is one of the most improved women skaters as of late. She's gradually pushing her airs higher and is learning new tricks. It was good to see Apryl Woodcock out at the X Games this year. On a good day, she can match the best. She never found her groove though and grabbed 6th place. Jodi MacDonald rounded out the field and skated hard. Jodi always charges whatever she skates and is always fun to watch. At the sound of the horn, the jam final was over and I headed down to the bottom of the ramp for the medals presentation. By my account, it was a tossup between Mimi and CB. When CB was announced as the third place, I was excited for Mimi, because I thought for sure that she would get first. Then to my surprise, they announce Mimi as the silver medalist and Lyn-Z for gold. I have to say that I love Lyn-Z and I give her all the props she deserves as a skater, but I think on this day, Mimi deserved to win. It seemed like the judges were awarding points for one big trick rather than a whole run and use of the ramp. I think Lyn-Z would have deserved gold if she had pulled her 540, but she came up short. Maybe it was because Lyn-Z goes higher, maybe it was because there were a couple street skating judges thrown in with vert judges instead of all vert judges, who knows? I just think that Mimi got gold jacked.
Sunday, after refusing to pay $40 for media parking, Lonny Hiramoto and I came in with high expectancy for the "Legends of Vert" demo with an epic line-up. Steve Steadham organized and brought together some of the best skaters from yesteryear. Steve Caballero, Duane Peters, Kevin Staab, Lester Kasai, Christian Hosoi, Tony Hawk, Tony Magnusson, Mike McGill, Ben Schroeder, Chris Miller and of course, Steve Steadham himself. Even though ESPN only allowed the legends a half an hour, they got to showcase their skills and show the crowd how the pioneers of vert skating can still fly with the best of them. After a half an hour of madness, which saw DP almost faceplant a few times trying to acid drop into the extension, Hawk still pulling almost every trick in his bag, Staab's backside ollies, Kasai's frontside inverts and Schroeder taking a mean digger after hanging up on an invert, the legends were kicked off the ramp to make way for the pro practice. Even the announcer got impatient when some of the legends didn't leave. He obviously didn't know who these "old guys" were and didn't care. No respect.
After I set myself up in the designated media area in the tower, I snapped a few shots of practice. And just when I thought I might get some good shots from this angle, the minions of the suits came in saying that the area reserved for media is only reserved for certain media. Which means that the media credential that I received was only good to get in the front gate. I ended up going around to the media corral at the side of the ramp only to be cramped in with the handicapped viewing area. Since I felt I was encroaching on their area, I decided to pack in my stuff and just watch. When I arrived at the entrance to the friends and family area, I was denied access because of, "fire marshall, full capacity" crap and had to wait about a half an hour before other people came out so I could get back in. Lot's of people got impatient and yelled at the gate keeper, but since the gate keeper was on the inside, he felt it his right to treat the people who are just trying to cover the event like Michael Vick treats a dog that loses a fight. By the time I got in, the skaters were already on their third runs. I ended up just watching the big screen from the deck. I didn't stay for the results, or maybe I did and just didn't care who won. I later learned that Shaun White took gold with a rare, flawless run.
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