Rimini Inline Recap

By Chris Mitchell

Day One (July 30, 2005)
French skaters swept the preliminaries, taking four out of the top five spots. Stephane Alfano showed an intensity we haven't seen in him since 2004 to take first. Anthony Avella - whose 11 year old brother made his LG debut - took second. And 17 year old powerhouse Roman Abrate did a surprisingly strong run to finish third ahead of seasoned pros Bruno Lowe , Beni Huber and Sven Boekhorst Italian skater Mauro Moi squeaked into the top ten in a two way tie for tenth.

Day Two (July 31, 2005)
DJ extraordinaire, Pat Sweeney chose the inline finals to spin the best set of the year. After a dazzling pair of preliminary runs, Stephane Alfano was hosting a comfortable lead. The rest of the field, however, was looking strong after an hour of warmup, and by the start of the comp, it was anybody’s game.

Samo Bajec from Ljubljana, Slovenia, pulled a series of the most creative tricks of the day. 450 to frontside royale down the shotgun rail, alley oop mistrial down the flat rail and a handful of inspin tricks helped him pull up to 8th. Dutch skater, Randy Abels made a good showing, spinning to backside farfergnugen down the rail. Fourteen year old, Roman Abrate pulled a 720 over the box straight into a 900 over the spine, then savannahed the rail to finish 4th.

Beni Huber took the bronze with a stylish run that featured a fakie 900 over the box and a topside pornstar down the rail. Stephane nailed a solid corkscrew 720, boosted up to alley oop topside acid the sub box, stuck a disaster backside unity over the pyramid, and finished with a corkscrew 900 and an opposite  540 over the spine.

But it wasn’t enough to surpass Anthony Avella , who had one of the strongest runs of the year, starting with a 450 disaster frontside on the shotgun rail, soul transferring from the little quarter to the big one, right into a corkscrew 900 over the box, and never losing speed throughout the entire run. Avella’s run had to be seen to be believed, so tune in to OLN, Eurosport, or your local network for LG Action Sports coverage!