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

The Maloof Money Cup, presented by etnies and Monster Energy, today unveils its much anticipated 2009 Street Course.

The course was designed by Geoff Rowley and Joe Ciaglia with design assistance from Colby Carter, Mark Waters and Pro Skaters Lance Mountain, Braydon Szafranski and Erik Ellington. It was inspired by real street spots, including the Sunset up-down corner ledge on Sunset Boulevard, the Barcelona Ledge and the Big Fours and 12-stair from Rincon in San Diego. In addition, there are near replicas of Pier 7 and the Mission “3-up-3 down” in San Francisco, as well as UC Irvine’s 6-stair hubba and rails.

The new bump-to-picnic feature was chosen by the Transworld Skateboarding staff from thousands of entries and suggestions submitted to Transworld’s web site. The winning feature was designed by Chris C. of Manalapan, New Jersey.

“What makes this contest so special is that the Maloofs are real people, they are genuine and they truly
want to make the best skate environment possible,” said MMC GM Tim McFerran. “They listen to the
skaters and ask them what they want to skate in a street course. Because of that, last year we saw a
higher caliber of skaters and tricks that you just don’t see at contests. This year, we had an overwhelming response from guys wanting to compete. All of the biggest names in the skate world, like
Paul Rodriguez and Ryan Sheckler, and guys like Marc Johnson, Mike Carroll, Bryan Herman and Silas
Baxter Neal who rarely skate contests, are competing this year.”

“It’s an awesome course,” said last year’s Street champ Paul Rodriguez. “I’m really looking forward to
skating it this year and just competing with all the amazing skaters that are in the contest. Some of
these guys haven’t competed in contests in years, so it’s going to be really cool.”
About Maloof Money Cup

It’s a hard-knock life for most action sports athletes.
They routinely bash their bodies, but find it nearly impossible to get health insurance that will cover their most serious needs.

Major league professional athletes don’t have that problem as their medical insurance is part of their unions’ collective bargaining agreements.

The Maloof family has seen both sides of the situation.

As owners of the National Basketball Association’s Sacramento Kings and The Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, they are required to make sure that their basketball players get the medical help they need when injury strikes.

As organizers of the richest skateboard event in the world — their Maloof Money Cup pays $100,000 to the winner — they also recognize that many competitive skaters lack even basic health insurance coverage.

“When I saw Jake Brown fall 60 feet at the 2007 X Games and then walk off, my first thought was, ‘I wonder if he has health insurance?,’ ” says Joe Maloof, president of the Maloof Companies. “I decided we needed to start a foundation that would look after skaters and protect any skateboarder who got hurt in competition.”

Joe Maloof, 53, and brother Gavin, 52, started the Maloof Money Cup in 2008 with advice from Brown and other top skaters, such as Ryan Sheckler. He also leaned on them for advice on how to best serve the needs of injured skaters.

“Skateboarding is progressing quickly right now, and with this progression comes increased risk of injury,” says Sheckler. “I know quite a few amateur and pro skateboarders that don’t have health insurance or much savings, and those are the guys that really need the Sheckler Foundation and Maloof Skateboarding Assistance Foundation. If a serious injury ended their career these foundations could provide them the assistance they need.”

Joe Maloof says many mainstream sports fans don’t understand the dangers faced by skateboarders.

“There’s tremendous risk in these contests,” he says. “They’re performing tricks that only the world’s top athletes have the ability to complete. We had a duty to take the lead in taking care of our own.

“These aren’t just kids. There are a few 15- or 16-year-olds, but most are ages 19 to 35, the same age range as NBA players.”

The Maloofs’ act has also inspired others in the sport.

On Good Friday (April 10), Pierre Andre Senizergues, owner and CEO of the etnies skate-sport footwear company is giving away 2,000 pairs of shoes to homeless people in Los Angeles.

“It is really important that those in a position to help give back to skateboarding and their communities,” Senizergues says.

Via Sal Ruibal, USA TODAY