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2002 Asian X Games - Day 1

2002 Asian X Results

Day two in Malaysia and it was time to go from the land to the air. Friday was vert day here, with the skateboarding finals going off in the blazing sun and the inline finals going down under the bright lights.

On the skateboarding side of things, Australian Dave Bodnar took care of business during his second run, winning the vert competition. Bodnar went all out, nailing down heelflips, kickflips, and an Indy 360 to cap his run.

Second place Tony Alexander was the only rider to even attempt a 540, and he landed it clean, to cap a great first run.

Left to Right: Tony Alexander, Dave Bodnar, Gen Ogawa

The most stylish rider of the day was definitely Gen Ogawa from Japan. Ogawa skated clean through his last two runs, and pulled out plenty of old school tricks while tweaking out all of his airs. His third run started off with a handplant on his second wall then back-to-back-to-back 360s which brought praise from the packed-out stands. Despite the great style, Ogawa didn't throw out any flip tricks and he had to settle for third.

Later on in the day it was demo time as Dave Mirra and Chris Senn took to the park course to session for the crowd. Mirra hit a backflip over the spine and Senn was all over the rails, showing off the slick style that he is known for.

This was just a warm-up though, because after the park throwdown, the Inline vert finals were up.

Under the floodlights, it was the Yasutoko brothers who shined the most, with Takeshi taking second and Eito taking first. Third place belonged to 12-year-old ripper Rui Kitamura, rounding out the all Japanese podium.

Mirra flips the spine during a demo.

The competition was close between the brothers, but they distanced themselves from the rest of the pack by over 10 points in the standings. In the first round, the older Eito unveiled his new trick, the Lu-Kang flat spin 720 to win. After that, there wasn't much that Takeski could do, although he was still putting it all on the line with multiple grinds and huge airs, flips and spins.

Following the awards ceremony, it was time for some more serious action on vert as Mirra, Senn, Achim Kujawski, the Yasutoko brothers, Dave Bodnar and several other skaters took over.

Senn, normally known for being a street master, was all over the pipe, flowing across the coping, airing it out a bit and hitting some smith grinds. Mirra was his usual self, getting the crowd pumped with several flairs and some more tech tricks. Kujawski was going big out of the ramp and he just barely dialed in a large tailwhip 10 feet up, much to the delight of the people.

Eito Yasutoko proved that he had a few other new tricks in the bag when he set himself up then launched out of the ramp, 10 feet up...and 10 feet out, over the deck, landing squarely on the piping to the photographers' area.

The crowd went into a frenzy and that was the cap to both the demo and the day. Everything picks up early tomorrow morning with bike park action, and then it is on to the Inline vert doubles, where the Yasutoko brothers will look to make their mark again.

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