Yesterday, February 25, in Oslo, Norway, the X-Games street skateboarding competition took place with Nyjah Huston, the 21 year-old American, walking away with the gold for his fourth straight year. Rounding out the rest of the podium positions were Shane O’Neill, the Australian, with the silver medal, and Luan Oliveira, the Brazilian, taking third.  

Nyjah’s dominance in the competition was unprecedented. He entered the finals in first place, and with a first run score of 93.00 out of 100 in the finals, he sealed his victory early on. Nyjah has been a force to be reckoned with in street skateboarding for a long time. He is the most dominating street skateboarder on the planet right now. Nyjah has won 8 X-Games street gold medals, 3 Street League Super Crown victories (in the 2014 Street League season he won every competition in the league), and he is only 21 years old. All of Nyjah’s runs were smooth, having perfect runs until his last one. He put together incredible tricks and had his run timed so well. By having his run timed so perfectly, he was able to execute extra tricks. Other competitors did not have the chance to do so. 

Nyjah’s competition was fierce.  Shane O’Neil trailed the victor by 1 point, as his first-run score was a 92.00, and Luan Oliveira was a very close 3rd, with a final run score of 91.33.  O’Neill is always praised as one of the best technical skateboarders in the world, putting down tricks only he can accomplish. Luan is also very well praised, having a very aggressive skate style with huge pop. Both skaters have tried extremely challenging tricks in competitions, landing seemingly all of them, which resulted in scores of almost perfect 10s.  

Here are the rules for the street contest at X-Games: skaters have 50 seconds to put together a run. They do 3 runs in total, with the highest scoring run counting. The tricks competitors perform in the run are scored based on trick-difficulty and execution style, with the highest possible score being a 100. The top 6 skaters from the qualifying round skate in the finals.

The other three skaters competing were Alec Majerus, who came in 4th; Curren Caples, finishing in 5th; and 20 year-old Louie Lopez, who competed in his first ever X-Games, came in 6th. Curren Caples was very impressive due to the fact he does not usually compete in street contests. Caples is a gold medalist at X-Games for park skateboarding (skating in pools). Caples is also a pro surfer, who infused a bunch of tricks with surfing influence behind them. Majerus and Caples both scored in the 80’s, while Louie Lopez had a score in the 70’s.

Many of these skaters will be skating in Street League this summer. Nyjah will be trying to capture his 4th Street League Super Crown victory, while O’Neill and Luan are looking to take the crown for themselves.

If you want to watch the finals in full here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kli6x3rz74

Photo Courtesy of Nyjah Huston’s Instagram Page @nyjah