http://www.wakeworld.com/news/featur...abu-dhabi.html
Gotta say, absolutely love the new site Dave!!
I couldn't be more impressed with the mens final in that water. How those guys were able to do what they did was truly a testament to their skill and dedication. There is no day on the lake no matter how choppy it is that is as bad as these conditions and these guys absolutely killed it, and man were they popping off that Epic wake. I would have loved to see this contest in good conditions too see how big these guys were going. Harley's crow 5 was redic, i thought it was only going to be a scarecrow at first and then BOOM, crow 5 like nothing, but all of the boys rode awesome. It was crazy too see how bummed Phil was with his pass. With conditions like that, there really isn't much you can do. I rode a contest probably 5 years ago now that was setup on the beach kind of like that one with very similar conditions. The most technical trick I could do was a raley and a backroll, and I was riding in outlaw. I fell on my first toeside hit which was a TS WAKE JUMP lol. You pretty much could get three hits in for the 2 passes and I remember I opened with a raley on my first pass because honestly I thought I had a better chance of landing it then just a strait air with a grab. These guys are just amazing too watch.
The rail jam was seriously at another level. There was no way to judge it because no guy was more or less tech or more or less stylish than the other. It was just a coin toss. I actually take that back, Marc HAD TO BE the most tech just to make it through a heat with a guy like Parks or any of the guys he rode against solely because he isn't as well known as them. I would have loved to see Parks in the finals just because there is nothing more I enjoy than watching Parks ride and nothing more than seeing him kill it. You also know Parks probably hasn't been training on rails AT ALL and he just comes out of the gate and kills it.
As for the girls, I was actually impressed with their riding with the given conditions. Dallas' work that she has been putting in should really scare the other girls because I could see her not losing a contest this year. You know that she will have her runs so dialed that she is not going to fall, and she has picked up some pretty tech tricks obviously not shown in this video. I don't really see how Amber won best trick unless it wasn't in the video because Nicola killed the rails. Amber's backlip transfer to backlip i'm assuming is what won it but Nicola's comfort on the rails made her the standout in my opinion.
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