LOS ANGELES — Pierre-Luc Gagnon broke away from Shaun White to win the X Games skateboard vert title Friday with a highly technical final run.
The 25-year-old Gagnon, of Carlsbad, scored a 95 by linking together a 720 spin, two 540s and a variety of flip tricks in the 45-second run.
After finishing with a new trick — which he described as a switch heelflip frontside air revert — he hurled his board in exultation back at the halfpipe inside Staples Center.
"I've been hoping to include that trick in my run all year," said Gagnon, who moved to Southern California five years ago from Montreal, Canada.
"I'm always going to be from Montreal. ... I hope they're proud," he said.
Gagnon won the vert and vert best trick at the 2002 X Games, but was knocked into second last year by Bucky Lasek, his friend and skate partner.
Gagnon's final run was praised by competitor Bob Burnquist for its level of risk.
"It was one of the best runs I've seen happen in a long time," Burnquist said.
White, the teen phenom whose shaggy red hair and huge jumps have earned him the nickname "Flying Tomato," was tied with Gagnon going into the final run, but fell twice and took second.
A crossover athlete, he's been more successful at the winter X Games, where he's taken the slopestyle title three years straight.
Sandro Dias landed a 900 in an early run but fell later and took third. He is the only vert skater other than Tony Hawk to land such a spin in competition. Dias said he planned to try a new variation of the 900 in the best trick contest to be held Saturday.
Earlier, 30-year-old Elissa Steamer earned her second straight victory in the women's street skateboard event.
Steamer, the oldest of eight competitors, said she was most proud of her ollie over a nine-stair rail. Experience counts, she added.
"I have been skating as long as some of these girls have been alive," she said.
Later at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Tommy Clowers cleared 32 feet to beat Matt Buyten in the Moto X step-up, a motorcycle high-jumping contest. Buyten had two chances to match the height but knocked down the bar both times.