Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - The city of Rio de Janeiro shows no signs of boredom with the Latin American X Games Qualifier as fans stood outside the venue three hours before gates opened this morning. By the days' end, more than 12,000 fans filled the venue to watch Latin America's best action sport athletes perform on the halfpipe and park course. The competition is near Aterro do Flamengo, where today proved to be the perfect location for the events' spectators. Gathering near the water under clear skies, the Latin American X Games Qualifier (LXQ) welcomed more than 200 of the region`s leading action sports athletes to compete for prize money, medals and an invitation to X Games VIII in Philadelphia, USA, in August. Athletes will compete in four sport categories of Skateboarding, Bicycle Stunt, Aggressive In-line Skating and Wakeboarding. The free-event continues through Sunday, March 24th.

Bicycle Stunt conducted the Park preliminaries tonight with 35 riders competing for the one spot to X Games VIII. Flairs, tailwhips and backflips summarize tonight's intense competition. Buenos Aires, Argentina can be proud of their hometown boy, Gabriel Mastragostino, who goes into tomorrow's final as the top qualifier. Only 2 points behind the leader, Sao Paulo's Samuel Shinogaki became the crowd entertainer who utilized the entire course and moved into 2nd place going into finals.

Pro Vert Demo once again brought Pro BMX rider and icon, Matt "The Condor" Hoffman, added more excitement to the day with a special demo on the halfpipe. His high airs, flips and tailwhips already awed the crowd, but Hoffman gave them even more. With the help of Brazil's legendary skateboarder, Sergio Fortunato de Paula, the "Condor", who doesn't speak Portuguese, communicated somehow to the Brazilian skater that they would drop-in and perform a trick side-by-side on the vert. One bike legend over the skate legend, resulted in a perfect flair over a frontside 540.

Skateboarding today can be categorized as one of the best park competitions ever. The crowds who waited at the entrance all morning immediately took to the stands that surrounded the park course when the gates opened. After doing the wave and cheering for their own favorites, the crowd witnessed the Brazilian Ramos brothers go head-to-head in the final. Wagner Ramos went in to today's competition already qualified for X Games VIII from a previous world competition. He finished second today with his brother, Rodolfo, surpassing him for the number one spot and a trip to Philadelphia. Rio de Janeiro's local hero, Allan Mesquita, went into the finals as the number one qualifier, but happy for his Ramos friends, as he settled for bronze. Later today at the Pro Demo, Bob Burnquist and Sandro Dias, alongside the "Condor", got half an hour in on the halfpipe before the sun went down at Aterro do Flamengo for the fans of Rio de Janeiro .

Wakeboarding concluded its' Round Two and Final today at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas (10 miles from the main LXQ venue). After a competitive Round One yesterday between the Brazilians and Argentineans, the results ended with both countries on the podium today. Juan Martin of San Isador, Argentina, finished first in his Heat yesterday, and after a solid, technical run today, claimed the silver. Sao Paulo's own, Rafael Shigueo Kamogawa picked up his pace and moved from 2nd place in Round One to the Gold Medal stand today, giving him a position at X Games VIII. Bronze medallist, Mario Teles de Menezes Mazolli, also a Sao Paulo native, completed the top three and summarized the atmosphere at Wakeboarding with: "Great event. Huge crowd, huge coverage. And above all good vibration with everybody united together in the spirit of the X Games."

ESPN and Globo have partnered in televising the first-ever Latin American X Games Qualifier. ESPN International, which has staged X Games-related events outside of the United States since 1996, will be the primary organizer of the competition. Globo will televise a minimum of three hours of the event live during its` "Sports Spectacular" program on Sunday, March 24th. Five hours of original programming will be televises on ESPN Brazil, ESPN2, Globo Programming and ESPN International networks around the world.

The LXQ I welcomes adidas, Mastercard and timnet as Gold Sponsors for the first-ever Latin American X Games Qualifier.

Within the last 12 months, more than a dozen X Games-related events have been staged around the world, including X Games Qualifiers in Barcelona, Malaysia and six Asian Xtour cities including a first-time visit to China.

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