The 2009 Maloof Money Cup is over and Chris Cole dominated the street course and walked away $100,000 richer. Alex Perleson blew away a line-up of legends and took the title in men’s vert. “This is the future,” Bob Burnquist told the Maloof Money Cup audience during awards as 18-year-old Perelson walked away with first place in vert and $75k for his efforts.
The Maloof Money Cup has a ton of hype behind it, and rightly so. It is quite possibly the best contest for street skaters and vert skaters alike. Nowhere else do you find a course designed by the skaters in the contest with votes on features and dimensions. It all comes down to the fact that the Maloof brothers care about skateboarding. This year the Maloof Money Cup did not disappoint. Some incredible, ground breaking skating happened in every area. The girls threw down like true champs (one girl even knocked her head hard, went to the hospital and was back in time to win the Zumiez Destroyer award) and pushed the level of competitive skating up a few pegs. The vert and street sections were so tightly packed with tricks that people will be talking about it for months.
A few highlights: Alex Perelson laid down the fourth ever 900 in the Men’s Vert Finals, but that was just the beginning. Bob Burnquist used the mini-mega ramp set up during the jam format section of the vert contest and was putting together some incredible combos. Moving it over to street we had huge gaps being thrown down by, the one and only, Ryan Sheckler who looks like he hurt his elbow right at the buzzer but kept it going strong. Dennis Busenitz skated twice as fast as anyone else and had the crowd on his side at all times. Nyjah Huston proved to everyone how consistant he really is by nailing flip to grind tricks all day. Tommy Sandoval got as gnarly as anyone, finding all the big gaps and drops the course had to offer, he definitely earned that second place finish. Chris Cole killed every section of the course with an amazing mix of tech and gnar like only he can. There were no trick combos going cold in the finals and the level of skating was truly legendary. Here are the results from the contest as well as some photos to catch you up on what went down, or re-live the amazing event in HD on FUEL.TV/maloofmoneycup. And check out what happened the last few days as well.
Men’s Street Finals
1) Chris Cole 91.75
2) Tommy Sandoval 90.33
3) Nyjah Huston 90.25
4) Torey Pudwill 89.58
5) Ryan Sheckler 89.25
6) Sean Malto 85.67
7) Greg Lutzka 85.58
David Gonzalez
9) Paul Rodriguez 80.88
10) Mark Appleyard 79.58
Best Trick
Adam Dyet won it with a number of tricks including a kickflip backside tailslide on the long Rincon rail, and a switch backside heelflip down the 4 block.
So many more memorable tricks went down in this 25 minute jam session, a few of the highlights are: Nyjah Huston fakie 360 flipped the 4 block. Billy Marks nollie inward heelflipped and cab kickflipped the 4 block. Mike Mo Capaldi did a switch 360 flip and switch backside flipdown the 4 block, both perfect. Torey Pudwill backside 360 kickflipped the 4 block. Sierra Fellers nollie flip boardslid the long rail. Chris Cole did a bunch of stuff, most notabley, backside 270 lipslide on the tall rail. Pete Eldridge was a crowd favorite all weekend and spent his time skating the high bar section of Rincon and rolled awat from a switch ollie over the bar to switch lislide down the rail and a contest ending switch heelflip over the high rail.
Men’s Vert Finals
1) Alex Perelson
2) PLG
3) Bob Burnquist
4) Andy MacDonald
5) Buckey Lasek
Girl’s Street Finals
1) Leticia Bufoni
2) Lacey Baker
3) Elissa Steamer
4) Amy Caron
5) Marisa Dal Santo
VIA Fuel TV.com
