SAN FRANCISCO - Pierre-Luc Gagnon and Bucky Lasek both came out of the gate with 92.75's on their first runs in Friday's Skateboarding Vert final. They were tied for first place at the end of the first run.

It turned out to be a sign of things to come.

Trailing Lasek before his third and final run, Gagnon hit the ramp with nothing to lose. Going all out, he hit a huge 540 and a backside heelflip that sent the crowd and the rest of the skaters into a frenzy. With a score of 95.0, Gagnon appeared to have the competition wrapped up.

But after ugly spills knocked out Andy Macdonald and Bob Burnquist from medal contention, the stage was set for Lasek, the 1999 Skateboarding Vert champion, to take the last run of the competition, and steal the gold away from Gagnon.

Bucky soaks in the moment.

With Gagnon looking on, Lasek took a minute to rev up the crowd, give a smile to the camera and drop in for what would be one of the most awe-inducing vert runs in X Games history.

He broke out with a switch frontside on the extension and then just kept pumping the tricks out. A frontside gaytwist and a backside lipslide, then a 540 and a rodeo flip and another backside 360. When Lasek landed a frontside cab heelflip/frontside grab, it was in the books: The best skateboarding vert run the X Games had ever seen.

"I didn't go in setting out to beat Pierre's run," Lasek would say afterward. "I set out to make the tricks I wanted to make. My main focus was to have fun and I wanted to make that known today."

While Lasek was laying on the vert ramp underneath a mob of people who had swarmed the ramp, the score flashed on the scoreboard -- 98.5, a full point more than Tony Hawk's 97.5 during the 1997 X Games in San Diego.

For Gagnon, his previous best at an X Games vert competition was a 13th place finish in 1998. But Lasek knows that Gagnon's performance was no fluke.

"He is and will be a force to be reckoned with in 2001," said Lasek.

"I was really out there on my last run, but I really got kinda sketchy and lucky on a few tricks," said Gagnon. "But I made it and I am happy with it. I felt good, but you always want to do better. I always want to improve my styles, my skills, just everything."

Colin McKay, who had two less than stellar runs, managed to pull off a clean first run that ended up earning him the bronze medal on a day that saw several skaters unable to land their signature tricks and take some nasty spills in the process.

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