If you weren’t up at Baw Baw on Saturday I assume you had nothing else worthy to do and were sitting in front of your computer watching us live webcast the 2009 Forum Battle At Baw Baw! Sure, there were still some technical hiccups, but if you missed it, not to worry, here’s a buttload more of photos from the event thanks to Mike Kearney.
UPDATE: Much more detail under the cut.
Want more details? Robbie Walker took out first place and $1000 on his first visit to Baw Baw. Robbie had consistency and technical tricks on all 3 features (ledge, centre rail and kink ledge). He did every 270 onto one of the three features and even a no comply boardslide down the centre rail. In close second was Mitch Williams who put down some big gap-to spins and effortless switch tricks (I’ve said it before that Mitch has the best switch nosepress in game). In third place was Chris DeCampo. Not only is Chris 16, but he was also using a borrowed board as his was broken in warm-up (I know because it was my board!). Chris’ front blunt pop around boardslide 270 out was impressive, as was his use of all three features.
The rest of the field weren’t taking it easy either. Benny Willick was seemingly suicidal with heel-catcher backflips to boardslide attempts onto the down box. Matt Galina also killed the centre rail with an inward back 270 boardslide 270 out. TSC rider Iver Lynne was also super consistent with lots of spin-on tricks. Chris Eacott reminded everyone how rad he really is with a breath of originality not often seen in Australia. Footplants, gap-to stalefish lipslides, laybacks and his signature switch backside blunts made it hard not to put him on the podium. Also impressive was Marc Baker with a handful of solid skate inspired tricks (nosepressing a non-cheater board is always good to watch) and big smooth gap-to spin tricks on the kink ledge. Stevie Duttmer also threw down the first gap-270 to the kink in the mens final.
What about the juniors I hear you say. Well not surprisngly it was a TSC domination with first place going to Andrew Roth his final trick of the session being an inward front 180 switch 50-50 180 out on the centre rail. Coming in second was Jack Carlin followed by Will Hargreaves in 3rd. Other Juniors ripping on the day were Henry Gosper, Daniel Kline, John Mongan and Declan Vogel-Paul. Overall it was an awesome event that has gotten better every year. I wonder how Baw Baw and Forum will one-up themselves next year?
