Nike SB presents London Am 2016
Sunday’s semi finals and finals of the Nike SB London AM under the Westway at BaySixty6 Skatepark proved once again that the level of amateur skateboarding in Europe, (and competition-focused skating even more so) is pretty ridiculous right now.
Vast amounts of ripping throughout the semis left the judges (including Free magazine’s Will Harmon) with a difficult choice of how to cut down the 60 semi-finalists into the 16-man final.
After a heavy weekend of skating in this large flowing park, finalists needed to dig deep to keep focus and Vincent Milou did both to claim third by way of back smithround the curved ledge and a brace of ridiculously consistent flat bar moves.
Taking second spot was Kevin Baekkel (aka Heavy Mental Delatorre), whose approach was to go at mach ten at all times mixing tranny madness with a desire to skate the entire park lay out.
At just 18, Aurelien Giraud from France was unstoppable throughout the weekend and seemed to be there with the sole intention of winning from the outset. You simply couldn’t argue with the stats, with him landing a huge backside flip the entire length of the pyramid, followed by a hardflip to flat, double 360 flips down the stairs and BS 270 noseblunt on the flat bar, (amongst other tricks) pretty much every single try.
On top of the €3000 for first place, Aurelien will be travelling to the Berlin Open in July to compete against some of Europe’s premier pros at the Nike SB Shelter skatepark.
1st Aurelien Giraud
2nd Kevin Baekkel
3rd Vincent Milou
