Hardflip late-flipping in the shadow of the Colosseum | Simply Ranked
Plus: an app for daps, Pudwill's bigger bang, mixing the perfect 'crete, and more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other online things that I cannot stop consuming and how they make me feel, personally.
Hardflip late-flipping in the shadow of the Colosseum
Rank: 2
Mood: 🏟️
The #RoadToParis2024 began last weekend with an Olympic street skateboarding qualifying event in Rome, Italy. In the women’s finals, 17-year-old Olympic bronze medalist Funa Nakayama would push through a brutal body slam to front crook her way into 1st—the sight of a high-calibre Olympic athlete with Shake Junt grip tape a win for us all. Nakayama and her Japanese teammates Momiji Nishiya, Yumeka Oda, and Rizu Akama would control the following three spots, with new pro Rayssa Leal taking fifth.
Despite Japan's eventual dominance on the podium, it was a competitive event that showcased the young and ever-deepening talent pool of skaters in the women’s division, with 12-year-olds Coco Yoshizawa and Chloe Covell claiming the 6th and 7th spots over longtime competitor and 8th place finisher Pamela Rosa. This also served as the first event to use new judging criteria for the women, one different from the men’s rubric they were previously judged on, allowing big moves to be rewarded with higher numerical scores than before. 13-year-old Akama would land a Barley grind and a very Templetonesque 180 nosegrind that both scored in the high 80s, prompting commentator Alex White to wonder aloud, “Think she’s ever watched Welcome to Hell?”
Something something gladiators, warriors of the new age, vying for glory in the shadow of the Colosseum, etc. Glib appreciation of the event’s locale aside, the men’s final did have moments of high drama fit for the big ol’ amphitheatre. From defending Olympic champ Yuto Horigome finishing in last place, elder statesman Ryan Decenzo showcasing mid-thirties mettle by clinching a 7th place finish, two unknown Argentinians in Matias Dell Olio and Mauro Iglesias flipping into and out of everything on their way to 4th and 5th place finishes, and even a bit of controversy, as Aurélien Giraud’s hardflip late flip over the hubba ledge—an objectively absurd and difficult maneuver landed on Giraud’s last “best trick” attempt—wasn’t scored higher than Nyjah Huston’s fakie flip backside nosegrind down the same ledge, denying the Frenchman the victory.
Was the Giraud docked points for a dork trick? Did Huston get a gift from the judges? Does any of this really matter? No. But that’s the magic of sports, baby.
An intriguing proposal, daring entrepreneur
Rank: 3
Mood: 🙏
“Join Mark Wahlberg in prayer only on Hallow, the #1 Catholic app.” Reads more as a threat than an invitation to “stay prayed up,” but these cunning theocratic technological thespians are onto something. If there are any angel investors out there, consider an app, perhaps called “Hemmies,” that connects you with a selection of San Diego-based professional and amateur skateboarders who, over video chat, encourage and offer guidance as you try to land a trick. The user would be able to purchase 15, 30, and 45-minute “sessions” with a skater at a fee structure of the skater’s choosing. And much like Hallow, there’d be a lot of steepled hands; they’d just be making a slightly different shape.
A bigger, messier, more perfect bang
Rank: 1
Mood: 💥
Torey Pudwill released his new video part, the aptly titled Bigger Bang, on July 4. There are long slides, incomprehensible combos, questionable music choices, flailing arms, and some of the most visually challenging Grizzly Grip Tape seen to date. It is a type of chaos you can’t look away from that exists between repulsion and appreciation. Here there is a comfortable place to sit agog at its aesthetic choices and simultaneously enjoy just how hard he worked to deliver us his most Pudwillian offering to date. And simply, it rules. Or, as his mother would say sweetly in the video’s comment section on Thrasher.
“We may have”
Rank: $150,000,000
Mood: 🕵️
I learned a lot during my first trip to Las Vegas last weekend. Like how the heavy desert heat feels like being pressed between two musty old mattresses and how it actually kind of hurts when the women walking down the Strip in dominatrix garb unexpectedly hit you with their riding crops as you’re minding your own business watching the Bellagio fountain jets perform a synchronized little number to Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
While scrolling Twitter in Las Vegas, I also discovered that the social media giant recently settled with the Federal Trade Commission after being caught using emails and phone numbers it collected to set up two-factor authentication for targeted advertisements from 2013-2019. Twitter would put it this way in a post that showed up in my new America-based feed:
The passive-aggressive and carefully worded non-apology, a follow-up to their 2019 apology, includes a lot of qualifiers, like “as we told you” and “we may have,” which appears to be the company’s way of dampening the fact that they were recently fined 150 million dollars for violating the FTC Act and the conditions of a previous settlement for misuse of user’s personal information that Twitter maintains was “inadvertent.”
But that doesn’t seem like a big enough fine for subjecting countless people to targeted ads—the worst kind of them all. The ones that feed you commercials for Tail Devils or trailers for Mid90s, which is not unlike getting hit by a stranger’s riding crop without permission. Sure, I may be into that, but I didn’t tell you I was or that you could do it, so please leave me alone.
Top 10 things to mix into yer ‘crete
Rank: 4
Mood: 🍺🥃🥫📝💧🤝🧋🌞😂 🥲
10. Four Modelos, warm from the trunk of your car.
9. Dregs of a Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum bottle someone left at your house after last night's party.
8. The last can of Campbell's Chunky New England Clam Chowder Soup in your pantry, the only thing you’ve been eating for weeks, and what you ate alone in your room yesterday as the party raged below.
7. A torn-up letter from your ex-lover.
6. The tears that roll from your cheek as you imagine what could’ve been.
5. A whispered pledge to be better for yourself and the people around you.
4. A splash of grapefruit Lacroix.
3. The promise of a new day.
2. Your friends’ laughter as the build continues.
1. A sound unfamiliar at first until a distant memory prods, becomes warmer, and closer until you realize it’s coming from you. This foreign noise, your laugh, escapes fully, freely.
Something to consider: Doing a lil dancey dance with your loved ones.
Good things: Al Brown with a look into the history of our greatest slide.
Until next week… be patient with yourself.
