Nyjah didn’t turn up, neither did Sora Shirai, Gustavo Ribeiro, Milou etc. Too focused on the Olympics.
Jake Yanko, Sebo Walker, Niels Bennett and Cookie skated like we want to see people skate that thing too.
I wish Louie Lopez turned up, he’s one of the rare people that make every run super exciting.
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Would be happy to see Decenzo getting first place as he killed it too and he’s 37 and it’d be rad to see him winning but yeah, Yuto’s nollie front foot flip into a boardslide probably sealed the deal.
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Decenzo only got 7th! WTF!
Yeah that makes absolutely no sense! Homeboy got robbed.
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I thought all the finals runs were a bit boring. Bit of a let down this year.
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Agreed - I think that was partly because Yuto had obviously won after his first (?) run so nobody else aside from Decenzo really tried that hard
Or we’re just desensitised to the level because we’re overexposed to pro’s skating, we see their same tricks over and over and progression is slower than the rate of media. Am’s are hungrier, scrappier and more surprising. Foy is insane but i’m pretty bored of watching long front crooks all the way through the best trick comp. I’d like people to mix it up a bit more but I guess winning is more on their radar than entertaining people online, which is fair I guess.
I don’t think it’s really that I’m desensitized to that extent, I can still recognize skill…but seeing these battle hardened comp skaters rattling off their tricks is just a bit of a dull spectacle.
I think anon might be right that Yuto killed the buzz by being too good. Also, I think the park needs a rejig to give it more flow.
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Does feel like a lotta Rodil Jr runs going on, no matter the level.
Decenzo spontaneous add on tricks were a lotta fun because they were spontaneous. The rest of the time, its just waiting to see if each rider can land that entire sequence when it counts and nothing more.
I guess this is one of the outcomes of skateboarding: olympic sport.
Train it up, bozos.
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Hate to say it but I honestly enjoyed SLS more than Tampa the last few years. MC’ing was pretty lacklustre at both but at least with a few bigger obstacles there was a bit more ‘oooh’ value at SLS. Did Tampa have a women’s event?
I only watched the final
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Yeah, same here. SLS has been kinda fun.
Maybe that SLS format just forces the spontaneity with the five tries thing where the classic contest format doesn’t allow for that?
Just looked at the results on the tampa site - no women’s street, just vert.
They’ve never separated mens & womens.
I’m fairly sure there was some dialogue around it 3-4 years ago and they decided to stick with the “we’re all skaters regardless of gender” angle.
Personally, I understand the gesture but am not sure I agree.
Weirdly, just had a discussion about this exact subject with a couple of others IRL.
Well, not IRL. It was over Zoom.
As if anyone actually sees anyone in IRL anymore.
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Personally, I don’t see a problem and back this 
What did the others say via Zoom out of interest?
I don’t think anyone has an issue with it necessarily, just that Tampa looks increasingly out of touch because of the lack of female skaters. I know the back story, Elissa is a Tampa OG and she’s stated on record numerous times how she used to just enter the contests without thinking about her gender, and that obviously informs SPoT’s attitude to the event.
Sadly I just don’t see many women entering it as it is so ultimately it’s going to look out of date unless there’s some changes. Whatevs though, it’s only my opinion. It’s still sick that SPoT stuck to their guns on the ‘we’re all just skaters’ angle.
[/nonchalant emoji]
I only managed to watch some of the semi finals and last finals runs. I haven’t really watched this comp in the past bout it seems my underwhelmed sentiment isn’t unfounded.
The crowd looked like it was full of family, wags and industry types. Maybe that explains the lack of enthusiasm?
We’re far from Dustin Charlton getting another toilet bowl chucked at his head or kids swimming through the moat but s bit of elm street board slapping wouldn’t go amiss.
We didn’t spend long on it. Just had a skater there who was injured. She didn’t enter because of that, but from that came the conversation over lack of females for all the reasons @anonymity mentioned. Including Elissa mention, too.
It’s definitely good in theory, but in practise it’s probably impossible to have a mix of genders in the same comp and actually have anyone other than men in the top 10 (at least at the moment).
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