Day 3 of X Games 18 Los Angeles was vert-iginous! With 6 medals events and crazy bmx and sk8 vert finals!

Pierre-Luc Gagnon got gold after battling out Bucky Lasek in a tiebreaker decision in the Skate Vert Finals. Competition was intense – Andy MacDonald took bronze after giving everything he got, including a new 540 kickflip, and 12yrs Tom Schaar was still there landing 900 like there was no tomorrow – the kid got this trick dialed, men. To be mentioned last year gold medalist Shawn White did not take part in competition.

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Pierre-Luc Gagnon 91.00
2 Bucky Lasek 91.00
3 Andy Macdonald 85.70
4 Sandro Dias 85.30
5 Danny Mayer 85.30
6 Rony Gomes 83.00
7 Tom Schaar 81.70
8 Elliot Sloan 69.70

Back to vert for the bmx finals, where the – 40 years old! – Jamie Bestwick shown everyone what mean to be THE BEST with a terrific tech run including downside tailwhip to turndown and flair double whip – yes, crazy!

I’m loving this X Games edition cause it’s definitively the “legends” against the “groms” – an incredible challenges putting heat on the competition! Here’s full result of BMX Vert.

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Jamie Bestwick 86.00
2 Vince Byron 72.00
3 Simon Tabron 72.00
4 Steve McCann 70.00
5 Austin Coleman 64.00
6 Chad Kagy 63.00

Heading to the park for the skate finals where Pedro Barros won his second X Games Skateboard Park gold medal, beating out Ben Hatchell and Rune Glifberg in a down-to-the-last-second battle. Runs included pieces of skate art like a fakie ollie to nosegrind over the hip, a 360 over the gap, an alley-oop 50-50 through the shallow end pocket, a lein Sal flip, a “Unit” frontside invert 540 in the deep end to shallow and a frontside kickflip… unreal stuffs!

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Pedro Barros 84.00
2 Ben Hatchell 83.00
3 Rune Glifberg 78.00
4 Kevin Kowalski 71.00
5 Ben Raybourn 69.00
6 Andy Macdonald 62.00

On bmx park finals Scotty Cranmer won his third gold medal at X Games battling against Ryan Nyquist (silver) and Pat Casey (bronze).
Daniel Dhers, holder of 4 of the last 5 gold, was out of the comp due to an injury suffered in practice.

RANK TOTAL SCORE
1 Scotty Cranmer 79.00
2 Ryan Nyquist 77.00
3 Pat Casey 76.00
4 Brett Banasiewicz 75.00
5 Drew Bezanson 70.00
6 Gary Young 67.00

Take a quick break with Tanner Foust and Greg Tracy successfully challenging the Hot Wheels Double Dare Loop!

Back to the street area for the Game of Skate Comp, where Ryan Decenzo beated our Ishod Wair, Aaron “Jaws” Homoki, and Mike “Lizard King” Plumb, winning his second consecutive gold in this contest. Ryan showed up his incredible archive of switch trick on that rail. Props man.

RANK
1 Ryan Decenzo
2 Ishod Wair
3 Aaron Homoki
4 Mike Plumb

Ending with MX with Motocross Speed and Style comp, where Mike Mason took gold against MX living-legend Nate Adams…

RANK        SCORE
1 Mike Mason 92.8
2 Nate Adams 91.3

… and a curious ending in Women MX Finals, with a result that was exactly the same as the one in 2011! Deja-vù?!

RANK TIME (SEC.)
1 Vicki Golden 300.8
2 Tarah Gieger 308.0
3 Livia Lancelot 310.0
4 Meghan Rutledge 312.5
5 Jessica Patterson 318.2
6 Tatum Sik 322.1

Stay tuned for Day 4 with BMX Big Air and Skateboard Street Finals!