A strong presence in the southern scene, Florida has produced a wealth of incredible talent, and with their 7th annual Bladesgiving competition, it doesn’t look like it’s losing any steam.
Introduction: Ryan Loewy
Recap: Robbie Squire
Photography: Chris Aberger
This year was our 7th Blades Giving and it went off! We had a few new faces show up and they put on quite the show.
Bladesgiving 7 from Doteye Productions on Vimeo.
We started it off with the intermediate class, these dudes were killing it and skating through some pretty bad injuries. Tyler Huston skated his heart out with a hurt tail bone and ended up taking 1st, Drop In’s own Matt Shendell took 2nd, and a new comer to Blades Giving, Freddy Rodriguez took 3rd. We did not have any other bladies enter this year so Gaby Velasquez skated against the intermediate boys and still kicked some butt. She ended up making it to the finals but was beat out by Tyler, Matt, and Freddy but she still definitely deserves some recognition for recovering from an injury and skating against the boys and still advancing.
We did an old man comp for the first time this year and the old dudes killed it!! Buck took a nasty fall in the very beginning of his Heat but he still gave it his all and skated very well, but he was beat out by Tim Deaton who took 3rd, BJ Marte in 2nd and Rochester’s own Grant Hazelton taking the 1st place medal.
The advanced contest was some of the best, most creative skating I’ve seen in a very long time. Last year’s winner Eric Michael was dropping insane tech hammers in lines the entire finals. He did a huge stall on the utility ladder, hand plant misty flipped out of the course, A/o fished the vert wall to name a few. We had two new faces show up to their first Blades Giving and they absolutely destroyed the park all day long. Zack Savage came all the way from Detroit to take 3rd with some big gaps, gaps to spin tricks, skating obstacles no one else was and used the park a bit differently then everyone else and he really stood out. Eric Michael took 2nd this year and mr Julian Bah took the win. Julian came out for his first Blades Giving and skated incredibly well, I don’t really remember him falling once, he was lacing all of the course with a big smile on his face and having a great time. Julian did some of the biggest and most thought provoking tricks of the entire day, he backslid all the way up the down ledges, spinning royale cess slid up the box to stall then transferred to the rail and then the next ledge!! In the end Julian came through with his effortless style and mind numbing tricks, but to be fair this was the single hardest finals contest I’ve ever had to judge. Patrick Anderesen skated like a seasoned vet out there even though he was the youngest advanced competitor, he killed it all day but it wasn’t enough to put him in the top 3.
I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who makes this possible every year, Frankie Terranova for putting this thing on year after year after year, putting his own money into the prize pool and really just being the glue that keeps it all together. Thank you to Cindi of Drop In for letting us use this incredible facility and being a very generous host for us. Thank you to Chris Aberger for shooting all of the beautiful photos and filming and still making a banger edit of the finals. Thank you to everyone still keeping BG going year after year, especially the sponsors. Hope to see some more new faces out here next year!! Until then…
