EVENT REPORT | TEXAS BLADE CLASSIC

WORDS: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: KEVIN LITTLE, @KEVINMLITTLE

PHOTOGRAPHY: MAL COLLINS, @MIRRORLESSMAL , DILLON ANDERSON, @THEDILLON , GINO GOTELLI, @GINOGOTELLI

The Texas Blade Classic returned for its sixth annual event at the Alliance Skatepark, located in Grand Prairie, Texas. In typical fashion any time there is a skate contest planned, the weather conditions decide to act up and have everyone on edge leading upto the day of the event. Although there was fairly mild rain during the early hours, which thankfully cleared up later, it didn’t affect the event terribly, but it did end up pushing large swarms of ants into my booth setup, which I was still finding crawling through our merchandise hours after the event concluded. Although Alliance does have a humoungous overhang for one of their major outside portions, the main issue was the moisture in the air that made the already slick park even more difficult to skate. But the skaters made the best of a bad situation, and everyone skated incredibly well despite Mother Nature throwing us a curveball.

The Alliance park crew once again added new obstacles for this year’s event, including an amazing kinked rail that competitors took full advantage of and put a thorough beating on. The skate park has seen a dramatic reconstruction over the years, and every year gives the skaters an opportunity to test their skills on the new additions.

The Texas Blade Classic hosted 3 separate contests: a juniors event for the younger competitors, a women’s comp, and an open adult men’s event. The juniors’ contest had numerous competitors who showed their developing skill set, skating the ramps with tons of speed. The winner of the juniors’ event was ten-year-old Jaden Falkowski, who was fresh off his win at the Clash on the Concho event two weeks before, and Jaden went into the Blade Classic with a ton of confidence and heart in his performance, earning him another first-place win. Second place went to the talented Ezra Guthrie, and third place went to Jaden’s younger brother, Kalen Falkowski, who all skated incredibly well for being so young! These kids have a bright future ahead of them, and witnessing their progress was very inspiring for the rest of the competitors.

The Bladies event was a battle between two of Texas’ best female bladers, Joanna Lorensen-Wilson, hailing from Houston, Texas, and Dallas’ own Marisa Schar. The two both busted out their best tricks, and both skated extremely well. Joanna was getting down on the quarter pipes, locking numerous technical grinds, and even laced the difficult long ledge across the island, with super stylish composure. The winner of the event went to Ms. Marisa, though, as she was cruising through the whole course at top speed and hitting numerous gnarly tricks, including a super stylish fishbrain to revert off a pretty big quarter pipe drop.

Next up was the Men’s Pro/Open competition which was incredibly intense, with skaters flying all over the place, hitting some of the park’s nastiest obstacles, and often times hitting each other in the process. Thankfully, there weren’t any major injuries this time around! Some of the highlights of the Men’s Open were Wes Phelan’s runs, which included some very technical grinds with his signature squat style, which gave me flashbacks of a young Marcus Benavides. Houston, Texas’ blader and wellness guru, John Perez, also was utilizing the whole park landscape, linking numerous solid grinds with smooth airs, and an overall stylish execution. Jose Arce was also putting in work on the new bank-to-rail, lacing a few high-risk disasters to grinds, all while suffering through a bad tooth infection. Jose showed his mental toughness and skated through the pain and came out with some of the cleanest switch-ups of the day, as usual.

Dallas local Justin Jones came out guns-a-blazing this year and was skating with reckless abandon, and pulling out numerous difficult negative grinds, 360s to grinds, and a massive mizou to 540 to drop off the big ledge over the island. The winner, however, went to Matt Hughart, who was skating super consistently all day, making the most difficult tricks look like a walk in the park. From huge fakie 720s off the quarter pipe, a super stylish zero fishbrain across the channel ledge, and a first-try 270 backslide to sweaty, Matt sealed up his win in style and pocketed some loot for his efforts.

Thank you so much to Victor Nelson and Mark Heau of Alliance Skatepark for being so welcoming and accommodating to the action sports community, opening your doors to us, and giving us an incredible facility to hold the Texas Blade Classic each year. Thank you especially to all the organizers such as Gino Gotelli and Nate Landerholm, and the photographers Mal Collins, Dillon Anderson, and Gino Gotelli for providing us with their amazing coverage of the event. And most of all, thank you to all the competitors, who gave their all and made the Texas Blade Classic another amazing event for the books! We look forward to the seventh edition of the event coming next year; we hope to see you all there!

MENS OPEN: 1ST PLACE MATT HUGHART, 2ND PLACE JUSTIN JONES, 3RD PLACE JOSE ARCE

BLADIES: 1ST PLACE MARISA SCHAR, 2ND PLACE JOANNA LORENSEN-WILSON

YOUTH: 1ST PLACE JADEN FALKOWSKI, 2ND PLACE EZRA GUTHRIE, 3RD PLACE KALEN FALKOWSKI

HEADING PHOTO: DILLON ANDERSON

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more quality skate content.