Veteran’s Day for Gagnon

Shaun White, a.k.a. the Flying Tomato, proved Friday night that he could be to skateboarding what he is to snowboarding.

But then came Pierre-Luc Gagnon to show that not all of the vert skating veterans are ready to step aside just yet.

During the vert finals Friday night at Staples Center, White, 18, used some of the same moves that have made him so dominating on the snowboarding halfpipe to post a score of 92.25 on his first of three runs on the vert ramp. Highlighting his rotation-filled routine was a technically difficult move called a fakie-to-fakie frontside 540.

But Gagnon, 25, after a poor first run, matched White’s score with a series of technical tricks, and on his third and final run he used the same routine but added a switch-stance heel-flip frontside revert and received a score of 95.00.

That earned Gagnon his third X Games gold medal and eighth X Games medal overall. “I knew when he stuck that first run I could not hold back too much,” Gagnon said. “I had to go for it.”

White’s silver medal was his first medal as a skateboarder. He has six X Games medals as a snowboarder, four of them gold. He has been spending the last few months focusing on skateboard in an attempt to prove to himself he is capable of competing with the world’s elite.

“What’s rad about skateboarding is that when I come to the events I don’t really stress out so much. I just have fun,” he said.

With that he announced he was taking a break from skateboarding, traveling to snowy New Zealand on Monday to focus on snowboarding again before the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Sandro Dias, who posted a score of 92.00 largely on the merits of a 900-degree rotation, earned the bronze.