Monday Morning Motivation: Bob Burnquist 2001 Vert Run X games

Today's Monday Motivation comes from real life. It was 14 years ago, I was watching the summer X games and the skateboard vert competition was my favorite event. Bucky Lasek was just killing it out there and he got a score somewhere in the mid 90s. Almost an unbeatable score. The only skater left that could knock him out was Bob Burnquist.

Bob starts out his run and after a few tricks, he goes for a kickflip indy to fakie and starts going his run in switch. Bob goes for a switch flip indy and doesn't complete the full flip. Normally, any person would just throw the flip away. Bob is anything but normal. He grabs the board on the graphic side flips it a half flip and lands on the vert wall with his front foot on the nose and back foot in the middle of the board (nollie position). This is the first time the announcers freak out. Bob was supposed to slam on this trick and bruise some ribs but he barely held it together. Tony Hawk continues to shout out the tricks Bob is doing.

Switch frontside ollie
Switch backside ollie
Switch rock and roll

As the audience is freaking out, Bob starts doing blunt tricks. These are common on mini ramps but not as much on full size vert ramps. Bob did a blunt to fakie and a half cab frontside blunt but then he just kills the competition.

Bob Burnquist did a blunt kickflip to fakie on a vert ramp. I had never seen one of those on a vert ramp before. That trick is (theoretically) regulated to mini ramps. If that trick goes wrong, a man can very likely slam on the flat bottom. This trick caused everyone to freak out.

That was the trick that and the buzzer wins a competition. Yet, just for the lolz, Bob goes and does a switch backside lipside revert to finish his run. He didn't have to do it because the blunt kickflip to fakie already won the contest for him. But he did it anyway.

This contest run scored him a 98 to win and is one of the greatest vert runs in history.