Recap: X Games, Day 2

9:58 p.m.

One gold medal at X Games 16 just wasn’t enough.

Maybe 40 minutes after winning gold at skateboard vert, Pierre-Luc Gagnon won another at best trick for his nolly heel-flip variable.

“I don’t think I’ve ever won two gold medals in one day,” he said.

He beat out Colin McKay and Bob Burnquist, who won silver and bronze.

By winning the two medals, Gagnon also became the first skateboard vert rider to win three straight in the event. He said the tough competition from Shawn White, Andy MacDonald and Bucky Lasek made the win sweeter.

“It was amazing,” he said, “especially after the way Shawn, Andy and Bucky skated.”

-- DeAntae Prince

8:44 p.m.

Motor cross rider Paris Rosen was taken to the hospital to the hospital on Friday night after he attempted a front flip and landed on his back in the best trick competition, silencing the crowd at Staples Center.

The level of concern was heightened even more when he remained motionless on the course for about 10 more minutes. Medical personnel strapped him to a gurney and carried him off the course. Just after he was loaded into an ambulance in the Staples Center corridor, his manager said that Rosen was able to move his toes.

Additionally, announcers told the crowd that he was awake, talking and able to move his limbs.

“I guess it was a mistake,” winner Cam Sinclair of Australia said of Rosen’s accident. “I made a mistake last year in Spain as well....Mistakes could happen quite easily.”

Said second-place finisher Robbie Maddison of Australia: “Those jumps, any jumps, you can pull off in your own environment, to go to your own compound. But when you come to X Games, you’ve got world-wide media and packed stands. It adds a different element to it...Hopefully he gets better soon.”

The 29-year-old Rosen was born and raised in Apple Valley, Minn., but now lives in Phoenix.

-- Lisa Dillman

8:33 p.m.

Shaun White has dropped out of best trick.

White was rumored to have a 1080 attempt in the works, four rotation spin move that has never been done and would one up Tony Hawk’s 900 from X Games in 2001.

White took silver in vert skateboard just before the competition. Tonight’s gold medal winner, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, is one of six skateboarders currently competing in best trick.

-- DeAntae Prince

8:26 p.m.

A double-backflip was the best of eight moto X tricks performed on Friday night. Cam Sinclair, an X-Games rookie, was the one to land it.

Sinclair performed the trick in his first run during the best trick competition, earning a standing ovation and a 94.33 score from the judges.

Each rider had two runs, with the top score counting. Sinclair did not have to take a second run, as his first was good enough for gold.

Robbie Maddison won the silver medal with a trick in which he turned 360 degrees above his bike and landed with both legs to the left of the bike. The trick earned him a 93.66 score. Taka Higashino took the bronze.

In his first run, Paris Rosen attempted a front flip but was unable to convert. Rosen landed on his back after a long fall and after several minutes was carried off of the course on a stretcher. Word came later that he was awake and talking and could move his limbs. Rosen has landed the trick many times in the past.

-- Laura Myers

8:10 p.m.

Pierre-Luc Gagnon won his third straight gold medal in skateboard vert and became the first to do so in the event’s history.

The understated and quiet skateboarder beat Shawn White, the Olympic snowboarder with loud hair.

Gagnon had a total score of 93 and won the medal with his last run, which accounted for 56 of his points.

White wasn’t far off with a strong 85 for a silver medal. Andy MacDonald took bronze with 79 points.

The event featured riders doing freestyle runs on an inverted ramp. There was a 12-minute jam session where riders dropped in and received scores based on tricks pulled and their ability to land the majority of tricks tried.

Ten began the event, which was later chopped to only five. But it ultimately came down to White and Gagnon.

Both pulled tricks well above the ramp, using kick-flips and various spins to wow the crowd in the Nokia Theatre.

-- DeAntae Prince

7:45 p.m.

Todd Potter won his second straight gold medal by popular vote in the moto X best whip competition.

The competition, which involved six riders who had 10 minutes to perform the best whip off of a quarter-pipe ramp, was decided entirely by text-message votes.

Potter took 52% of the vote. Silver medalist Jarryd McNeil, who was competing in his first X-Games, received 19%. Bronze medalist Jeremy Stenberg received 11% of the vote.

-- Laura Myers

6:40 p.m.

It came down to a riveting battle between Matt Buyten and Ronnie Renner and Buyten added to his collection of X Games gold, winning the moto X step up at Staples Center on Friday night. This was his third time winning the event

He cleared 33 feet, six inches on the winning jump. Both Buyten and Renner missed their first two attempts at 33-6 and Buyten made it on the third.

“I knew it was going to come down - I was telling my girlfriend and friends - it was going to come down to between me and Renner,” Buyten said. “It’s definitely going to be a dogfight and that’s exactly what it was.”

-- Lisa Dillman

5:49 p.m.

Jamie Bestwick won his seventh BMX freestyle gold medal after posting a score of 90 in the event.

Bestwick has been dominant in his sport for many years, and has won the last four Dew Tours along with his X-games victories.

“Congrats Jamie, very well done again,” Bronze medalist Simon Tabron said. “I’m hoping the next thing he says is he will announce his retirement.”

The final consisted of two rounds. Ten riders competed in the first round with the top five advancing to the second, which was one 12-minute session in which the riders each had four 30-second runs. The top two scores counted towards the final results.

Newcomer Steve McCann took the silver medal. McCann and Tabron both had a score of 80 in a combination of their best two runs, and both scored a 38 in their third best. The tiebreaker was their fourth-best score; McCann scored 35 while Tabron, who fell in his first run, had a 29.

“I knew before I saw the results, I figured it out in my head,” Tabron said. “There was one run I fell, I very much remember walking up every one of those steps to get back to the ramp. And I knew that Steve didn’t. He had four really solid runs.”

Two riders were injured in the first round of the finals. Vince Byron took a hard, face-first fall and didn’t move for several minutes before standing and walking off of the ramp. Kevin Robinson dislocated his left shoulder, but continued to compete. In his last run, however, he dislocated the shoulder a second time.

“At least two guys got knocked out… it’s kind of distressing to see when everybody’s feeding off of the riders,” Bestwick said.

-- Laura Myers

4:24 p.m.

Vincent Luezanos was named the top individual in the skateboard high school street final. Gnarls Bad was best team.

The competition had area high school students compete in teams and as individuals to determine the best street skateboarders.

Six minute sessions were provided for each team or individual to perform.

-- DeAntae Prince

4:08 p.m.

Gaby Ponce pointed and aimed her camera at the monitor featuring the final results in the mixed zone, irrefutable evidence for everyone back home in New Jersey.

“I wanted to send it to my mom as a picture message,” Ponce said. “We couldn’t afford a flight for her and my sister.”

The 18-year-old Ponce was responsible for a major upset on Friday, beating the highly accomplished Lyn-z Adams Hawkins in the women’s skateboard vert final. Neither woman could quite hit the highly coveted McTwist, but Ponce said this was her closest call yet.

Hawkins told Laura Myers of The Times of her multiple McTwist attempts: “I’d better ride away from this soon because otherwise I’m going to get hurt, which I did. I kind of did the splits on that one, and that really hurt.”

She may well have had the best anecdote of Games when she talked about trying to get her skateboard out of the net after one of the missed McTwists.

“I was so bummed because I was so close on that one before that,” Hawkins said. “I was like, ‘No, I want to do it again!’ And then my friend Special Greg was helping me get it down and it was stuck and we were like, ‘We need a knife!’ And my brother’s like, ‘I got one!’ So they cut it off and I got to go again.”

--Lisa Dillman

2:38 p.m.

Ty Morrow, Garrett Reynolds and Dennis Enarson all scored 89.66 to tie for first and advance from the elimination round.

“It’s everyone’s chance,” Morrow said. “It’s whoever lands their tricks. The last heat definitely was sick, though. They’ll probably be up there.”

All three first-place finishers came from the third heat and seven other riders emerged from the field of 15.

The 90-minute session started with athletes performing in three heats. The contestants were broken up by fives and the best run counted. The riders with the five lowest scores didn’t advance.

Many riders outside of the top three distinguished themselves. Fifth-place Dakota Roche got big airs, Sean Sexton performed tough tricks for seventh and Brad Simms pulled big rail moves for eighth.

But the last-place rider, Sean Burns, may have stuck out more than any others. Called a Sid Vicious look-alike by Times reporter Lisa Dilman, Burns said he knew he’d jump off the tent at the street tent and go over the Mobil Ad sign to a 15-foot drop as soon as he saw the course.

“That’s like the first thing I saw when I came on the course the other day,” he said. “I didn’t realize the lip would send me like that and I moved the fences [below the course], but the security guards moved them back.”

Here’s the full list of 10 to advance:

1.Ty Morrow - 89.66
2. Garrett Reynolds - 89.66
3. Dennis Enarson - 89.66
4. Danny Hickerson - 88
5. Dakota Roche - 88
6. Josh Harrington - 87.66
7. Sean Sexton - 86
8. Brad Simms - 85.66
9. Brian Kachinsky - 85
10. Aaron Ross - 85

-- DeAntae Prince

1:56 p.m.

Five amateur skaters advanced to the finals of the vert amateur event, which will conclude later tonight.

Italo Penarrubia won the first heat of the qualifier with a score of 69. Jono Schwan and Clay Kreiner also advanced from that heat.

Sam Bosworth took the second heat also with a score of 69. Steven Piniero also qualified from that heat to round out the field for the final.

-- Laura Myers

1:48 p.m.

Concrete meets BMX rider.

Luckily, Sean Burns walked away, safely, from that introduction in the elimination heats of BMX Freestyle this afteroon.

He went flying the course, soaring over the Mobil ad sign and dropped about 15 feet or so to the ground.

No soft landings here.

Burns, a modern-day Sid Vicious lookalike, looked shaken but OK. In true punk fashion, he then had a cigarette.

Call it Anarchy at L.A. Live.

-- Lisa Dilman

12:47 p.m.

Defending champion Rune Glifberg barely advanced past the elimination round in the skateboard park event, needing a last-second run to raise his score.

Twenty athletes competed in the park elimination, with the top 10 advancing to the first round of Sunday’s finals. Glifberg, with a score of 68, was the last to make it in.

Glifberg, 35, Omar Hassan, 36, and Bucky Lasek, 37, were the three oldest skaters in the event, and all three advanced. The two youngest riders, Pedro Barros, 15, and Curren Caples, 14, also made it into the top 10. Barros was the top scorer with 85 points after he landed a 540-degree turn in his second run.

Taylor Bingamon, Kevin Kowalski, Andy MacDonald, Chad Bartie and Nolan Monroe also advanced.

-- Laura Myers

11:20 a.m.

Julian Chrisianson is looking for a third win in four years at Hometown Heroes and leads the field of 10 to advance to the finals with a 91.33 score.

Chrisianson said the finals should see better scores and more intricate tricks.

“I just expect a lot of big tricks going down, a lot of sweat going down my face,” he said. “I’m just going to try hard and try to have fun.”

Tyson Bowerbank is in second, Chase Webb is in third and last year’s winner Ke’Chaud Johnson is currently in fourth.

They moved on from a grouping of the country’s 35 top amateur skarterboarders. The event brings riders from across the country together for a street skateboarding competition.

Five riders were placed in seven heats and given six minutes to freestyle tricks on the skateboard street course on the Event Deck at L.A. Live.

Here is the total listing of competitors in the Hometown Heroes finals:

1. Julian Christianson - 91.33
2. Tyson Bowerbank - 88.33
3. Chase Webb - 86.33
4. Ke’Chaud Johnson - 83.66
5. Nick Fiorini - 82.66
6. Edward Duff - 81
7. Adam Emery - 80
8. John Oskvarek - 79.66
9. CJ Dixon - 78.66
10. Ryan Thompson - 77

-- DeAntae Prince

10:06 a.m.

Competition began early on Friday with the Hometown Heroes Street Elimination, but the big events won’t be until later in the day.

The first medal competition of the day will be the women’s skateboard vert final at the Nokia Theatre at 2:15 p.m. Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins, 20, will try for her fourth straight gold medal in the event.

Finals will continue from there; all will be centered downtown at the Nokia Theatre, L.A. Live and Staples Center.

Other medal competitions on Friday: high school skateboard street, BMX freestyle vert, motocross step up, men’s skateboard vert, motocross best whip, motocross best trick and skateboard vert best trick.

-- Laura Myers