Anyone watching Jake Brown bounce of the ramp on Thursday had to have been scared. I know the ESPN analyst was because he almost said the s-word during the live broadcast. But nobody would have bamed him if he had said the f-word. It was a terrifying scene.
And the slow-motion reply of the video is downright disgusting.
Even now, more 36 hours later, watching the video still makes me cringe. I can't help but turn away from the screen when Brown hits the ground.
But it seems that just about everybody, not just people at X Games, has heard about the Brown video. I've already been e-mailed a link to it by three people (three people that have no interest in X Games, by the way) and have been asked about it by friends that knew I was covering X Games.
The video on YouTube has already surpassed 1 million views. And it has more than 3,000 comments and has been favored more than 5,000 times (all in less that two days). When I went to sleep last night, at about 1 a.m., it was at 994, something, something. It's gotten a lot of viewers from blogs (AOL's fanhouse and deadspin to name two), but most of the views are coming from people e-mailing the link to their friends and saying, "Did you see this?"
Jake Brown, 32, is still in the hospital right now, but is expected to be released at some point today. Considering the way he landed, the force of his impact and how quickly his shoes exploded off of his feet, it's a miracle Brown suffered bruises of the liver and lung, stress fractures in his vertebrae and a small fracture on the top of one hand.
Memo to Brown: I don't know how you did it, but thank God you did. You are only lucky, guy. Play the lottery when you get out of the hospital. Get well, soon.
-- Jaime Cárdenas
P.S. This might just be me, but I think Brown is easily the winner of this year's X Games. Even though he didn't get the gold medal that day, he definitely won. XG XIII will forever be known as the Jake Brown X Games.
P.P.S. After people watched the YouTube video, I have the sneaking suspicion that they then headed over to the LA Times website to read his latest update. An article by Pete Thomas giving an update on Brown's medical situation was the most read story in the entire newspaper's website at 9 p.m. last night. People want to know and want to read up on Brown. Here's a link to Pete's latest exclusive interview with Jake.
No wonder I didn't pay much attention to Chris Cole during the Skateboard street finals, the guy is too good. Yeah, you read right, he's too good.
Much like Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs, Cole is fundementally crisp with his motions. Perfect, almost. Sometimes his tricks look so effortless that they don't seem as impressive.
He has no facial expession as he does his tricks, which fooled me into thinking they weren't that hard at all.
Like Duncan, Cole seems to have a knack for collection trophies -- winning two gold medals on Friday.
Cole, 25, won his second one in the best trick competition -- at 11 p.m. PST, no less, but that's another blog -- with a double 360 kick flip that he nailed after like 20 tries.
He kept trying and kept falling, but didn't give up and stuck it with about 2 minutes left. The crowd rewarded him with the loudest ovation and by voting him the winner. He beat out Andrew Reynolds, 314 votes to 257.
He didn't raise his hand, didn't pump his fist. He just skated back to the ramp and then tried the trick again.
Even when he got his big oversized check, he was so nonchalant about it.
Like a machine, or like Duncan, Cole was painfully boring. Yet golden at the same time.
Ryan Sheckler is having a Freaky Friday. Now, it could be that the San Clemente native decided to pull out and did not want to compete in the Skateboard street men's best trick final later tonight at 9:45 p.m. (he had his index finger tapped up during the street final), but Schek did not get voted into the best trick lineup.
A real shame, if you ask me. Sheck would have been the favorite in this event, in my opinion. He didn't have the consistency to get a medal in the street final, but he did show a lot of creativity and that could have worked to his advantage.
The lineup for the best trick was decided by online voting, which closed at the end of the street event. The winner of the best trick, and recipient of $10,000, will also be chosen by fan voting (via online and mobile phone).
The sans-Sheckler field for best trick is the following:
1- Eric Kotson 2-Tony Tave 3- Nick Dompierre (who finished last in the street event) 4- Andrew Reynolds 5- Chris Cole
The best trick event will not be televised, but will be shown on EXPN.com.
There was a little bit of controversy at the end of the Skateboard men's amateur vert. In first place was Ben Hatchell of Virginia (87.50) and in second was Josh Stafford of San Diego (86.51). But there was a tie for third.
The tie was between Chris O'Reilly, who emerged as the leader after the first runs were over. After being leaped in the standings by three skaters, O'Reilly had a second run of 83.50 to tie him with Paul Luc Ronchetti.
Both skaters fell in their third run and didn't have high scores. So when the event was over and the skaters headed over to the podium, Ronchetti, not O'Reilly, was called over to receive the bronze.
The reason this is weird is because in other X Games events the tiebreaker has been the second-highest score, in this case O'Reilly's first run.
Not in vert competition, however. After O'Reilly's father pointed out to officials that his son, not Ronchetti, should be receiving the bronze, officials scrambled to find out what the rules were. Once the presentation was over the rules were defined.
In vert, the tiebreaker is the third run. Whoever has the highest-scoring third run wins the tiebreaker. If the final run would have been the same score THEN it would have gone to second-highest run.
Too bad, I thought O'Reilly was the bronze medalist as well.
In regular sports terms, Tony Hawk is "probable" and/or "day to day" for Sunday's "Legends of Vert" competition.
Hawk -- the man, the myth, the legend -- is on the official lineup, but when I asked an X-Games PR person to confirm his participation, he wouldn't say yes.
The Legends -- which is a nice way of saying old-timers, right? -- will hit the vert at 10:30 a.m. and the competition is scheduled to end at 11 a.m., an hour before the Skateboard men's vert finals begins.
Other notables in the legend lineup are Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Duane Peters, Lester Kasai and Christian Hosoi.
Just watched the men's skateboard street event for the third year in a row and still can't believe nobody makes them wear helmets, especially after what happened to Jake Brown last night on the mega-ramp.
Paul Rodriguez, who was the wonderboy of the sport two years ago, doesn't seem to be keeping up with the Coles, Lutzkas or Shecklers. He was pretty much in the background during the whole contest.
I'm still waiting to see Ryan Sheckler win an event as well. I realized he has had a lot of success on the Dew Tour, but maybe the bright lights of the X Games gets him a little flustered. He was the only skater brave enough to take his shirt off between rounds, however, revealing his "SHECKLER'' tatoo across the top of his back. Does he think people have trouble recognizing him? I'd say not, based on all the autograph seekers waiting outside the arena.
San Clemente's Ryan Sheckler finished fourth in the men's skateboard street final, .25 points out of third place. Sheckler was in second after the first session, third after the second one and then was not even on the medal stand when it was all said and done.
Chris Cole repeated as champion with a consistent array of kick flips and backside turns. He was followed by Huntington Beach's Greg Lutzka and Jereme Rogers on the podium. Sheckler, Tommy Sandoval and Paul "P-Rod" Rodriguez rounded out to top six.
1- Chris Cole - 94.33
2- Greg Lutza - 93.41
3- Jereme Rogers - 87.41
4- Ryan Sheckler -87.16
5- Tommy Sandoval - 86.25
6- Paul Rodriguez - 86.00
7- Mark Appleyard - 84.91
8- Eric Koston - 82.75
9- Andrew Reynolds - 80.50
10- Nick Dompierre - 78.41
When the standings were announced you could tell Sheckler and the people in his camp were not happy. They were as surprised as I was that he didn't even medal. But he was gracious in defeat.
Sheckler, only 18, told members of the media that "maybe it wasn't my day" and that even though he was disappointed with the results "he still had fun."
It was a class-act reaction from a guy that could have just as easily called into question the credibility of the judges.
Sheckler might not have been as consistent as Cole, but he was more of a risk-taker than the winner, that's for sure. In the first session he was the first to try to jump the entire ramp and got it on the first try. After a couple more skaters did the trick, he did a reverse backside turn that cleared the ramp as well.
He probably ran out of gas in that first session. During the break between the first and second sessions, Sheckler took off his shirt, ate a banana and drank something from his Red Bull athletic-bottle (I don't think it was Red Bull, which dehydrates you).
When he took off his shirt he showed off a new tattoo. Across his back he had "Sheckler" written from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, like a football jersey, in big bold letters.
It made one media member say, "I want one of those ... but I'll get a number as well." I'm not much into ink, but Sheckler's tat did look cool.
He'll get another shot at a gold medal in the skateboard street men's best tick competition at 10 o'clock tonight.
Dan Arritt (center), Times writer and O.C. native, has covered high school, college, the X Games and professional sports ranging from football to surfing in his two decades with The Times.
Jaime Cardenas (left), a Times intern and San Diego native who grew up in Tijuana with a passion for sports and writing, is a recent graduate of Cal State Fullerton. He has covered the World Baseball Classic, soccer's Gold Cup and junior college and high school sports.
Ken Fowler, a Times intern and Long Island, N.Y., native who attends the University of Notre Dame, has covered Notre Dame football since 2005 as well as women's basketball, college soccer, fencing and, most recently, the Galaxy (the soccer team, not our part of the universe).
Jaime Cardenas (left), a Times intern and San Diego native who grew up in Tijuana with a passion for sports and writing, is a recent graduate of Cal State Fullerton. He has covered the World Baseball Classic, soccer's Gold Cup and junior college and high school sports.
Ken Fowler, a Times intern and Long Island, N.Y., native who attends the University of Notre Dame, has covered Notre Dame football since 2005 as well as women's basketball, college soccer, fencing and, most recently, the Galaxy (the soccer team, not our part of the universe).