The 2019 Dew Tour Long Beach park and street competition was the first Olympic qualifying event in the United States, making it a historical event. Here we look back at the men’s street finals where four out of eight finalists were able to roll away in the best trick portion with a score of nine or higher. Each finalist had five attempts at landing their best hammer tricks, and only the top two highest ratings would count towards their final score. Scroll down below to see what it took for Aurelien Giraud, Sora Shirai, Felipe Gustavo, and Matt Berger to break into the nines.
Sora Shirai
Sora Shirai lays down a solid foundation by kicking things off with a hardflip frontside boardslide down the eight stair handrail for his first best trick. Judges were pleased and rewarded him with a score of 9.00.
Aurelien Giraud
Aurelien Giraud rebuttals Sora with the same trick on the same handrail but takes it to fakie. Aurelien Giraud received a 9.13 from judges. Was it due to taking it to fakie? Aurelien’s execution? Style? You be the judge.
Matt Berger
Like a bat out of hell, Matt Berger surprised everyone with his kickflip backside tailslide bigspin out on the eight stair handrail. Matt’s mouthful combo won him a score of 9.23 and was the highest scored trick out of the entire final.
Sora Shirai
Sora scored not one nine, but two in the final. On his fifth and final best trick attempt, Sora blew judges and fans away with a backside 360 bigger spin kickflip. A trick that is unbelievable to land once on any regular session but to make it flawlessly under pressure on his final run is out of this world.
Felipe Gustavo
Another hail mary on his final best trick attempt, Felipe Gustavo stomps a switch flip nosegrind down the MTN Dew hubba impeccably. This power move earned Felipe a score of 9.04 AND bumped him up into third place, taking down Matt Berger.
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