Backside Flip Snatches Gold From Reigning Champ Steamer
LOS ANGELES – Marisa Dal Santo unseated three-time gold medalist Elissa Steamer at the ESPN X Games 13 Skateboard Street Women’s Final today – and she did it on her 20th birthday, no less.
Steamer had won the gold medal the previous three years running (X Games 10, 11, and 12) and seemed to be the favorite heading into today’s competition at The Home Depot Center. But that was before Dal Santo pulled out a backside flip that netted her the highest individual score (92.5) of the competition.
Dal Santo was neck-and-neck with Steamer after zone two, but then hit her eye-popping backside flip when she hit zone three (stairs and rails) to pull ahead.
“Last year I was trying to do [tricks] no one else was doing,” she explained, in reference to her fourth place performance in X Games 12. “This year I just focused on stuff I knew I could land – but I didn’t think I was going to land the backside flip!”
Accepting the silver, Steamer enthused that Dal Santo was “gnarly today,” and further added, “I really like skating in the X Games – it’s kind of stressful, but when you look back you realize how much fun it was.”
Representing Huntington Beach, CA, Amy Caron’s 80.16 was good enough for third place. This is Caron’s fifth year in X Games competition, and she was coming off a sixth place finish in last year’s Women’s Skate Street.
“Don’t call it a comeback,” she said, in reference to her bronze medal and quoting an L.L. Cool J classic. “I’ve been here for years.”
