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Show 5 SECTION Tuesday, September 25,2007 www. dallyUtah chronicle, com Skate and Milo rich in history, gear snow White Jessica Dunn STAFF WRITER Shaun White has become the king of powder, cement Eric Williams STAFF WRITER When Shaun White got off the plane in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, he found the airport familiar, but the landscape was a lot less white than he remembered. As one of professional snowboarding's most dominant competitors, White is no stranger to Park City Mountain Resort's snow-covered park and pipe. But this time White finds himself on the dry land of downtown Salt Lake City competing in the AST Dew Tour vert-skateboarding event. Coming into the Salt Lake contest, White stood as the undefeated champ of the ramp, taking first place in all three of the previous Dew Tour stops. Determined to finish the fivesite tour on top of the point totals, White wasn't counting on his early success to carry him through. With seasoned veterans such as Bob Burnquist and Bucky Lasek on the roster, White knows he has his work cut out form him. "These guys are really going to step it up," White said in regards to the two remaining tour events. White says taking each contest "as it comes" is key to staying on the forefront of two different sports. Flying between skateboard competitions in the U.S., and snowboard training and promotional work in Chile and New Zealand is all part of White's summer routine, but transitioning between the climates and equipment setups is more complicated than jumping on a plane. Photographers get trigger happy as soon as he straps on a snowboard, leaving him no time to get comfortable in the goggles, helmet, and board he ditched for a skateboard months earlier. Keeping up with the level of his peers in both sports requires White to make the transition between sports in a matter of weeks to compete against guys who never left their respective habitats at all. "I kill myself just to get back to the level I was at, then I have to push ever harder to get better," he said. However, going from one worldclass event to the next can be an advantage. "I'm comfortable really high in the air," White said, attributing to snowboarding his aptitude for altitude as well as spin tricks. Going from the powder to the masonite also gives the 21-year-old superstar a chance to clear his head and challenge himself in more than one way. "(Skating) keeps me from sitting around all summer. I completely forget about snowboarding," White said. Being at the top of both skateboarding and snowboarding has always been a dream for White, who started skating in the Encinitas YMCA near his home in Carlsbad, Calif. His dream was realized this year when he won his first summer X Games gold, adding to his heaping stack of medals, including 7 Winter X Games gold medals and an Olympic gold from the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. As a kid, White followed his older brother into the less structured world of skateboarding. The selfmotivated sport came as a relief from hyper-involved parents and demanding soccer coaches. White took up snowboarding on family ski trips around the age of four. "The only reason snowboarding worked out for me was because the whole family was into it," White said. He is quick to give credit to his parents who would drive him for up to seven hours to find snow for the youngster to shred. At 12 he was riding professionally and gaining fame with the nickname "The Flying Tomato" thanks to his long, curly red hair. Taking his responsibility as a role model for other boarders seriously, White graduated high school even though it meant teaching himself algebra in a hotel room in Japan while other boarders were out partying. Now all grown up, he has a firm grip on this year's vert skating Dew Cup championship with more than a 100-point lead on his nearest competitor, even after finishing third this weekend. "I do the whole run," White said. "I try to do a trick on every wall." White says he feels comfortable in the portable vert-ramp, which has been modified in size and features in each of the tour cities, though some of his counterparts complained about the length of the Salt Lake ramp. "I feel extra pressure on my performance, it fuels me," White said of competition. "If I know I have fans there, I do better." Heading to Orlando next month, White looks to capitalize on his lead, and of course finish the tour with a fourth victory. "We're all in it for the long run," he said. e.williams@ chronicle.utah.edu Jeremy Lusk gets in some practice runs on Thursday. Lusk landed enough sky-high tricks on Saturday to take third place in the Freestyle Motor Cross event. •" \ ' • ( ' ' i Are you someone who likes to claim you're an O.G.? How about one to always call someone else a poser? Milo Skate and Snowboard Shop has rights to do both. Milo is Utah's original snowboarding shop. It opened in 1984 selling snowboards and windsurfing gear. Dimitrije Milovich, an engineer and one of snowboarding's early pioneers, opened up the Utah snowboarding mainstay. Milovich also designed his own snowboards and windsurfing sails. His sails were the fastest at the time and his snowboard company, Winterstick, was among the first in the Industry. About eight or nine years ago, Milo became a specialty skate and snowboard shop when Calvin Egbert, the current owner, bought the store. The shop has been growing ever since. Still in the original building on 3300 South, Milo now sells skateboarding, longboarding and snowboarding gear and apparel. They carry anything you would need from wheels, trucks and bindings to your shoes, hats and goggles. They also offer tune-ups, repairs and snowboard waxings. Milo isn't just a board store though, they're an active participant and leader in extreme sports in Utah. The company holds skateboarding contests in the summer at skate parks all over the Salt Lake Valley. During the winter, they help sponsor local snowboard events, contests, video premieres and hold pro-sales to give locals lower prices. The shop also has its own skateboarding and snowboarding teams. Milo's skateboard team has produced a few pros, including Mike Plum, also know as the Lizard King. The snowboard team is made up of local pros, including Jeremy Jones, Marc Frank Montoya and Aaron Bittner. Milo's commitment to the community and extreme sports is based on the object of providing the best shoes and decks for the skaters and the best boards and bindings for the snowboarders. Dave Mfrra performs a back flip on his BMX bike during the Dew Tour on Saturday. If you're looking for a new deck or board, or maybe just a skate-influenced new wardrobe, Milo is one place you should check out. "Everyone that works here is really nice," said Travis Johnson, a manager at Milo's. "It's just a good atmosphere were everyone loves skateboarding and snowboarding." Milo is located at 3119 E. 3300 South in Salt Lake City. You can also visit its online store at www. milosport.com. j.dunn@ ch ro n icle.u tah.edu CHRISTOPHER PEDDECORD /[hrte-I/UtehOir&kle Andy MacDonald tips off the top of the half pipe to the crowd's pleasure. In the last two years, MacDonald has won both third and fourth place in the Dew Tour. i Extreme: the new mainstream Jessica Dunn skating, skateboarding, sky surfing, sport climbing, street luge, biking and water sports. Today's society is a little more The competition received an enextreme than it used to be. We thusiastic response from athletes, drive faster, hit harder and take spectators and sponsors. The immore risks. pressive reaction prompted. ESPN Decades ago most kids dreamed to announce that the games would of becoming a star football, baseball be held annually, instead of bi-anor soccer player. But kids today are nually as originally planned. more likely to pick up a skateboard, With the new year, a new name in addition to playing other more for the Extreme Games emerged: X traditional sports. Skateboarding, Games. The X Games have grown one of the fastest growing sports each year since by adding more behind snowboarding, is now con- events, throwing bigger tricks and sidered normal. increasing media coverage. "(Skateboarding) is still a form In 2002, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC of rebellion, but it's approachable," Sports all covered the games. They said Andy Roberts, an undeclared set the record for the most watched sophomore. X Games ever with nearly 63 milThat wasn't always the case. Skate- lion people tuning in. The first boarding used to be considered the 24-hour X Games coverage was in radical, bad-boy thing to do. It was 2006, when 10 different stations broadcast it. a true underground sport. Skateboarding has been in and Media coverage has played a out of popularity ever since it start- huge part in the popularity of the ed. Many saw it as a fad, similar to X Games. The mainstream populalava lamps or bell-bottoms. Skate- tion depends on television coverboarding rose in popularity in the age and is a major factor in pulling early '80s when skaters built their skateboarding and other extreme own vertical ramps and formed a sports closer to mainstream. big underground movement. This is It also helped that the marketing how skateboarding legends such as didn't come off as anti-authoritarTony Hawk got their starts. Then, ian, said Devin Deaton, a junior in as history repeated itself, the skate- marketing. boarding fad faded out once again. The commercialization of new The hardcore skaters, however, media and products continue skatedidn't stop and the sport's popu- boarding's growth, as well. Extreme larity rose again in the '90s as sport video games, such as the Tony skateboarding reappeared with a Hawk Pro Skater series, are popuraw, edgy and dangerous attitude. lar with kids regardless of whether Skateboarding came with the punk or not they skate. movement this time, and the image Better parks and boards have of the poor, angry skater-punk ac- evolved with the shift into maintually helped fuel its popularity. stream. Skateboard-specific compaThen in 1995, ESPN—the self- nies have arisen and now innovate proclaimed worldwide leader in and invent new things to better the sports—expanded into the extreme sport. sports vein with an extreme games Skateboarding is not the only excompetition in Rhode Island. treme sport that has benefited from The competition was set up to the X Games, Snowboarding, BMX create an international gathering riding and Motocross have seen of action sports athletes. The Ex- rapid growth spurts after becoming treme Games had 27 events in nine a part of the X Games. categories, which included bungee Snowboarding started in 1965 in jumping, eco-challenge, in-line Michigan when Sherman Poppen STAFF WRITER i- fixed two skis together so his daughter could surf down the hill. He called it the snurf. Jake Burton, Demetrije Milovich and Tom Sims specialized and refined their own board designs in the early '80s and helped get the snowboard industry rolling. Through the mid-'8os, the snowboard craze grew. In 1997, the snowboard big air contest was a part of the first Winter X Games. Then a year later, snowboarders participated in the Winter Olympics for the first time in Nagano, Japan, with the slalom and half-pipe events. Snowboarding has progressed and added more events to the X Games, such as the Superpipe, and is the fastest growing sport. BMX, or bicycle motocross, started in the '70s when kids modified their bicycles to emulate their motorcycle motocross heroes. Imitation led to innovation arid BMX became a sport all its own. BMX was a part of the first X Games. The only event for it was stunt biking. In the years following, more events were added to the BMX event, including vertical riding, big air, flatland stunts, street stunts and racing. Motocross, or Moto X, began after World War II with flat races. In 1971, Moto X held a race on a temporary course at Daytona. All races prior to it had been held in rural, countryside areas, but this race brought it to the people. A year later, Moto X races were brought to urban stadiums and its popularity increased. The level of competition also grew. Through the '80s and '90s, teams, sponsors, manufacturers and others worked to bring Moto X to a new audience. They got thenchance in 1999, when Moto X became an X Games event. The X games have become a family event and a type of Olympics for extreme sports. Thanks to the X Games, we can let the rebel inside us out to pick up a skateboard without being shunned by society. j.dunn@chronicle.utah.edu |
