Thursday, August 17

Aggressive outsider takes inside track

By Daniel Dodd
ESPN.com

SAN FRANCISCO -- As the sun went down Thursday on Piers 30-32 in San Francisco, the Aggressive In-line competition heated up with a virtual unknown skating in from Thailand to take first place in the Park preliminaries. Jeerasak Tassorn averaged 78.63 for his two runs to join American Jaren Grob and Australian Sam Fogerty as the top three qualifiers.

Tassorn qualified for the X Games at the Asian X Games in Bangkok, Thailand, where he finished second in the street competition. The 18-year-old was the second skater in the first heat and lit up the course on his initial run with a series of technical tricks and smooth landings.

Still in first place at the start of his second run, Tassorn cemented his place in the finals with a terrific run that started with a gigantic 360 and was highlighted by an alley oop savannah and some nifty rail work that earned him a high score for the day of 82.25.

Salt Lake City native Jaren Grob, a.k.a. "Monster," joined Tassorn as the only skaters to swing a score of 80 from the judges when he put together an impressive second run with huge airs and the hard, fast style for which he is known. His score of 80.25 was enough to vault him into second place.

"I was really just trying to land stuff," said Grob. "I'm just happy to be here actually. I'm just having a fun time."

Australian Sam Fogerty, who finished 10th in the street competition at last year's Games, continued his hot streak with two solid, clean runs. He feels comfortable going into the finals.

"It was really good out there," said Fogerty as he unbuckled his skates to take a breather on the sidelines. "I just wanted to do easy, or sort of medium-level tricks with one or two hard ones so I would hopefully land in the finals. I did everything I wanted so hopefully in the finals I can try some harder stuff."

The rest of the top 10 who will appear in Friday's final include Aaron Feinberg, Nick Riggle, Shayne Skower, Santiago Azpurua, Sven Boekhorst, Jake Elliott, and Samo Bajec.

Last year's gold medalist Nicky Adams was tied for eighth place going into his final run when he tried to land a gigantic 540 right out of the gate. After a failed second attempt, Adams climbed to the top of the ramp and took a seat, falling all the way to 22nd in the standings.

In addition to the men, the women of inline took their runs at the same time as part of a new format to this year's competition. If any female skater qualified in the top 10, they would skate with the men in the final, thus taking away a man's spot. It has been referred to as the "Fabiola Rule" in honor of Fabiola da Silva who started the 2000 ASA season with a fourth and seventh place finish against the men's vert field.

The pride of Brazil was in 13th place overall after her first run and was looking to squeak into the men's final with a strong second run. But a couple slipups hurt her and she fell to 18th place overall. She still landed the top score for the females, claiming her fourth X Games gold medal.

"My first run was pretty good," said da Silva. "I felt good just to land my tricks. The second run was really a big one. But I'm just having fun this year."

The women now will turn their attention to the vert ramp for Saturday's finals where da Silva's three-year run of gold medals was snapped last year by Ayumi Kawasaki.

The men will settle things on the Park course Friday and turn to the vert ramp with preliminaries Saturday and the finals Sunday.