Report: AIL Woodward 08

Tags: ail, ben weis, cj wellsmore, david sizemore, j condamine, woodward west

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My mate CJ Wellsmore from Australia told me he was qualified for the world championships at a rollerblade pro invitational and he was flying to the United States. I was so excited to see him because I had left Australia a year ago and I had just finished a 3 month US trips with this comp.

We left LA for Woodward at 1am. I was following Antony William and Rick Rodriguez. I knew I could rely on them even driving in the desert at night. It was difficult crossing the desert this late at night and on the top of that it was surprisingly cold. We arrived at 2:30 in the morning. It was too late to call Richy to check in, so we crashed at Aaron’s place. big up and thanks to him, we did have the best time in his room...

Every kid was ready by around 8-9am for the training and to enjoy this perfect skate park. Most of them impressed the judges and the crowd (Jon Julio, Jess Dyrenforth and Mark Vanderboegh) with a variety of technical tricks. It was difficult to try and guess who was going to turn pro. We all get drunk in time for the results and was celebrating the qualification of my friends CJ Wellsmore and Roman Abrate Derek Henderson... who just turned pro.

Hung-over as usual, we found out the new course was set up with new ramps launching into a Van and new rails. Really sick ideas. They were getting ready to do some amazing skating. I just had some time to try cookies at the Intuition stand and say hi to Matt Mickey.

This competition was very simple: giving each other turns to do the ticks we wanted, like a jam session. Round after round, every skater pushed it to the next level. Chirs Haffey was always bigger and higher. He seemed like he was going to walk away with the prize money, but CJ Wellsmore was doing good just as well skating very fast with precision. He could land a nice 450 kind grind on the flat box and then jump on the van doing a 540 abstrac to 720 out didn't attempt so he could scored it with a fakie 540 out. Stockwell cruised the course with style doing some really nice airs, unique line. Ben Weis wanted to show us some stuntx by taking maximum speed to jump over a quarter pipe to a wood rail. Crazy best tricks. David Sizemore was in the house landing everything he tried, I’ve never sen someone so consistent. He made my job as the photographer easy. He landed a 900 out of the van and he just 450 royal the high rail on the box just unbeatable. Chris Haffey tried a nice disaster alley oop fish brain and had some really bad fall at the end.

Congrats to winner David Sizemore, second place skater CJ Wellsmore (from Australia), and third place blader Ben Weis.

Text and photos by J. Condamine