So a trip along the M62 to Liverpool saw the ExPix van outside Rampworx for the Chaz Sands Invitational inline skate competition.

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With some big names from the world of inline including world female number 1 Jenna Downing from Yorkshire, Coco Sanchez all the way from California, CJ Wellsmore from Oz, Franky Morales who was going to ride until he injured himself whilst at UKSkate park as well as quite a few more names the crowds came down to watch and hopefully meet their idols.

So Arriving at 10.45am on Saturday morning, Rampworx was already buzzing. With approx 190 competitors the format for the comp was jam style heats to enable the guys to get through everything. It was quite something watching the heats run in this way but made it difficult to follow one rider, or to move around to find good positions to photograph the action.

The skaters were all over the place. On the rails, over the jump boxes, fliping, twisting, grinding infact most of it was just a blur, we've never seen so many skaters in one places taking part. Usually the events we cover are far more restricted and its good to see a bigger cross section of skaters on the park at the same time. With the pro's mixing it with the ams during practice sessions it gives the youngsters something to aim for and doesnt make it so inacessible as in some other sports were the elite are kept 'away' from the masses. We think this is a really good move to intergrate people of different levels.

Anyway back to the competition and the format really was a good choice considering the number of skaters, getting through the ams, ladies and pro's in 1 day is quite a feat in its self but when you add to that, crashes, judges scoring, refreshements is amazing they managed to get through it.

With the top ten ams gaining places with the pro's competion was fierce, but in the end the top 3 ams were Elliott Stevens in third, Andy Gilbert in 2nd and Joe Atkinson in first all three representing England.

1) Joe Atkinson - England

2) Andy Gilbert - England

3) Elliot Stevens - England

The womens competion had two heats with the top two from each heat going through to the final.So with Jenna Downing, Chihiro Azuma, Coco Sanchez and Manon Derrien in the final the ladies would have to be on top form to take away the win.

From the off it was obvious it was a two horse race not that the others were bad but both Jenna and Chihiro were killing it. Both were really pushing hard to gain the advantage, Jenna had more power and height with her ariel moves whereas Chihiro was more technical and fluid on the rails both however were awesome. Even back flips and some really nice grinds from Manon and Coco couldnt keep them in the running.

The results were as follows

1) Chihiro Azuma - Japan

2) Jenna Downing  - England

3) Manon Derrien - France

The pro's final was something else, CJ was using the whole park and was very stylish which probably gave him the result over Chaz and Soichiro both who were very technical on the grinds,  but as the final ended CJ was playing to the crowd with some massive drops and grinds including a back farv 540 drop.

 

Results

1) CJ Wellsmore - Australia

2) Chaz Sands - Scotland

3) Soichiro Kanashima - Japan

I'm sure there will be one or two video's knocking around in the next couple of days / weeks so keep an eye on the other sites in the meantime we will try and bring you some more inline images from Fise and watch the site for details of a shoot we did at UKSkate park with Matt Cripps, Coco Sanchez and Ste Swain.