Shane O’Neill shines at SLS Nike SB Pro Open in Barcelona

By winning in Barcelona, O’Neill earns his second Golden Ticket to the 2016 SLS Nike SB Super Crown World Championship. He got his first Golden Ticket in March of this year when he won Tampa Pro. That day, like today, he put down a superb performance.

O’Neill was in the lead after everyone took their first run with Ryan Decenzo trailing him by a point and with a three-way tie for third place between Chris Joslin, Cody McEntire and two-time SLS Pro Open defending champion Nyjah Huston.

At the end of everyone’s second run, O’Neill was in the lead because he had the best scored run, an 8.7 – which featured a crowd-wowing bigspin fakie 5-0 on the ledge. Huston was right behind him with his run for which the judges gave him an 8.6, probably for his picture-perfect 360 flip over the euro gap.

The Best Trick section got off to a wild start with all skaters landing their tricks except for O’Neill and Huston. Joslin’s ollie up the volcano ledge and bigspin off got him an 8.4 and was the highest scored trick of the first attempts. In the second round of attempts there began to be a shakeup in the standings with half the guys missing on their tricks.

McEntire was in fifth place and moved into first place when he was scored an 8.4 for a switch kickflip backside lipslide on the handrail. Huston moved up from eighth to fourth when he rode away from a nollie 180 nosegrind revert on the handrail, but O’Neill’s trick made McEntire and Huston’s hammers look ordinary. In eighth place and needing a 6.8 for fourth, Shane landed a switch big flip frontside boardslide on the handrail for a 9.2, and the crowd went nuts.

On the third round of attempts more separation happened between the skaters’ scores as the first four guys to try missed, and only three out of the remaining four landed their tricks. Huston was in fifth and needed an average score of 7.5 on his remaining tricks for first place. Nyjah tried a frontside half cab bluntslide to fakie on the handrail and landed it, but not cleanly, so he only received a 6.7. McEntire, who was in first place at the time, stayed in first when he backside flipped over the volcano – he got an 8.5 for it, but didn’t stay on top for long. Shane O’Neill knocked him out with an 8.5 of his own and took control of first place again.

On their fourth attempts just about every skater needed a 9 point average score or more in order to make any progress, but only Luan Oliveira and Paul Rodriguez earned points, setting the stage for the fifth attempts to decide it all. On their fifth attempts almost everyone didn’t land their tricks. McEntire was in second place when it was his turn but needed a 10 for first. Needless to say that 10 didn’t happen, so O’Neill was the presumptive winner with Huston still waiting to go. When his turn came, Huston was in fourth needing an 8.1 for second place. Nyjah made it into the 9 Club with a cab frontside bluntslide on the handrail, which moved Cody McEntire into third place and put the seal on Shane O’Neill’s second win this year.

SLS Nike SB Pro Open results:

1. Shane O’Neill – 34.8

2. Nyjah Huston – 32.8

3. Cody McEntire – 31.8

4. Paul Rodriguez – 31.0

5. Luan Oliveira – 29.9

6. Ryan Decenzo – 28.9

7. Chaz Ortiz – 28.4

8. Chris Joslin – 22.2

Words by Reggie Altema

To see what else is going on at SLS follow this link. 

Photo gallery