EK First streamed on Free-Speech media app “Rumble”. The SLS at Sydney, Australia was an absolute tossup. A contest that was filled with NBD’s (Never Been Done tricks) and tears of joy. It truly is the pinnacle of skateboarding as a sport.
Dashawn Jordan started the contest line scores with a solid first run that included a nose blunt on the Boost Mobile sign and a gnarly crook UP the hubba as a couple of his bangers. He led the competition with a solid 8.6.
Kairi Netsuke was second to skate in the finals and dropped a steezy nollie inward heel on the bank to hip and ended off his line with a heel flip backside lip slide down the nine stair handrail and a frontside tailslide frontside flip out on the bank to ledge. Kairi made his run look like light work and took the lead with a 9.4.
Nyjah Houston came next. He had an all-around ok run. He fell off his board twice but still managed to make a 6.9. Felipe Gustavo put up a solid first run with a nollie flip crook down the hubba that the judges really liked, but he slipped out on the kickflip crook on the boost mobile sign. He put himself in a very solid position with a 7.2 on his first run. Lucas Rabelo started his first run off, slipping out of his fakie backside nose blunt. He was a little shaky from his falls but dropped a steeze frontside 180 switch 5-0. He slipped out of his last trick giving him a 5.8 putting him in a rough starting position.
Yuto Horigome, skateboarding’s prince and Olympic gold medalist, put up a solid first run including a treflip 50-50 down the nine stair hubba, unluckily messing up his last trick which gave him a solid 7.7 to end off the first set of line scores.
Dashawn started off the second set of line scores with a rough second run, keeping his first line score. Kairi took his second run easily to conserve his energy for the best trick portion of the contest. Nyjah stepped up in the second portion of the line segment. He had a very solid trick selection doing tricks as hard as switch heelflip front board and backside 180 switch 5-0, he boosted his line score to a solid 9.0.
Gustavo had a slightly sketchy run, but ultimately pulled through and boosted his score slightly to 7.4. Lucas Rabello’s second run was about as unfortunate as his first run, and he ended up keeping his first run score.
Our white knight, Yuto Horigome, had an absolutely perfect second run putting himself in a solid position with a line score of 9.2. After a short intermission and rebracketing the skaters, Lucas Rabello started off the best trick portion with a frontside 270 switch backside lip slide down the nine stair handrail giving him an 8.7. Gustavo followed Rabello closely with a Switch Kickflip backside nosegrind down the nine stair hubba which the judges really liked, scoring him a 9.0.
Dashawn popped a beautiful frontside 270 nose blunt down the nine-stair handrail, effectively giving him an 8.9. Nyjah missed his first trick attempt leaving him with 0.0. Our king Yuto Horigome put down a gnarly nollie backside 180 suski down the nine-stair handrail, which could quite possibly be an SLS NBD if not the second time ever, this gave him a 9.4 putting him in an amazing position. Kairi attempted a heelflip backside tailslide big spin out but slipped out when he landed.
During Lucas Rabello’s second trick attempt he did a fakie treflip backside lip slide giving him a 9.3. After that Gustavo put down a nollie flip 5-0 down the hubba which the judges scored him with a 8.8. Dashawn dropped in and put down a hesh treflip 50-50 on the boost mobile sign which the judges scored as a 8.5.
Nyjah stepped up and put down a solid switch heelflip frontside 5-0 180 out down the hubba. The crowd went wild and so did the judges, giving him 9.0. Announcer Andrew Cannon made the comment, “Nyjah Houston enters the group chat” showing how Nyjah is back in the running.
Skate god Yuto Horigome unfortunately missed his second trick. Yuto created a chain of misses, Kairi, Lucas Rabello, Gustavo, and Dashawn all mess up on their next attempts. Nyjah was the only one to land something on his third attempt, with a switch heelflip crook down the hubba giving him a 9.1.
Yuto and Kairi unfortunately both missed their fourth trick, completely taking them out of the running. It was an absolutely rough night for Yuto, missing tricks that you can throw down as a warmup is an absolutely terrible feeling. Lucas Rabello ended up missing his fourth and fifth tricks putting him into fourth place with a 23.8. Nyjah Houston also missed his fourth and fifth tricks putting him in third place. Felipe Gustavo put down a switch flip frontside tailslide to normal giving him an 8.8.
Dashawn missed his flick on his fourth trick and didn’t lock into his slide on his fourth trick; however, put down an insane backside bigger flip frontside boardslide to fakie on the handrail giving him a 9.0. Dashawn took the lead with 35. Felipe Gustavo would need an 8.5 to take first. Gustavo put down an insane nollie flip frontside noseslide giving him an 8.8.
Felipe Gustavo takes his first ever gold medal in SLS with a score of 35.4. He knelt behind his board with the flag of his home country Brazil on his back.
The overall rankings for the night: Felipe Gustavo infFirst with a 35.4, Dashawn Jordan in second with a 35, Nyjah Houston in third with a 27.1, Lucas Rabello in fourth with a 23.8, King Yuto Horigome in fifth with 18.6, and Kairi in Sixth place with a 9.4.
