Skateboarders have a reputation for being laid-back and unaffected by the kind of pressure that plagues most professional athletes.
Rodolfo Ramos stomps that stereotype.
"I was nervous three days ago when I got here," said Ramos after earning his first win on the Dew Tour with an 88.30-point performance in the Skateboard Park competition at Saturday night's Toyota Challenge. "When I woke up this morning, I was feeling a little sick. Then I threw up a couple of times."
It was his older brother, Wagner Ramos, who helped calm his nerves. Those pep talks enabled the Brazilian to deliver when some of the other favorites could not.
"He just told me, 'Do what you do better'," he said leaning on his skateboard as sweat poured off his forehead. "He helped me with my tricks."
Ramos was in first place all night, but never succumbed to the pressure that got to some of the other top skaters, including the Dew Cup's defending champion, 15-year-old Chaz Ortiz.
The 12 finalists were divided into two groups with the top qualifiers skating last in each heat. Each skater completed a 60-second run (worth 20 percent of the score) and then a five-minute jam session (worth 30 percent of the final score). The top six after those two skates then went on to compete in a 10-minute jam session that was worth 50 percent of the competitors' final scores.
Ramos earned an 89.65 to lead all skaters after the first round and first jam session. Ortiz finished sixth after the one-minute skate but then tried repeatedly to land the same trick but couldn't do it. He ended up in 10th place and left the floor before the scores were even announced.
In the end, of the six skaters who made the final jam session, only Greg Lutzka had ever won a Dew Tour event. Crowd favorite and second-place finisher Chris Cole (88.05 points) has been on the podium twice before but hadn't won. Interestingly, he now leads the Dew Cup point standings with 262. Ryan Decenzo is second with 238 and Ortiz sits third with 228 points.
Cole said he used to do what Ortiz did Saturday night and try to nail a trick that the crowd really wants to see, but he's changed his strategy.
"I'll give up," he said. "I used to try to do the trick for the audience, but then you land one trick and everyone else shreds. It ended up to be a really losing scenario."
He said it's not a difficult thing to do if winning is the ultimate goal.
"It does hurt when it's something you know you can do," he said with a shrug.
Nick Dompierre finished in third place, something he felt very good about as this is first year on the tour.
"There is a lot of park in this competition and I am more of a street skater," he said. That means he enjoyed the Jam session, which featured skaters taking turns doing different tricks, as opposed to the one-minute choreographed run.
"It felt really good," he said. "I didn't expect to do this well."
As for whether Ramos will feel a little less nervous now that he's finally earned his first win, he laughed.
"Next time I'll probably just be super nervous," he said. In part because the quality of skating is always getting better.
"It's amazing," he said. "It's so much harder than other years. I like to skate like this."
Saturday's event also featured the BMX Park Final at 1:30 p.m. Garrett Reynolds didn't win the competition, but he finished second and that was enough to put him at the top of the Dew Tour standings. Daniel Dhers won the event with a score of 92.40, while he finished third with a score of 91.63. He now leads the tour with 280 points, while Dave Mirra is second with 258 points.
BMX PARK RESULTS: 1. Daniel Dhers, Caracas, Venezuela; 2. Garrett Reynolds, Toms River, New Jersey; 3. Brett Banasiewicz, South Bend, Indiana; 4. Ryan Nyquist, San Jose, California; 5. Mark Webb, Southsea, Great Britain; 6. Dave Mirra, Greenville, North Carolina; 7. Rob Darden, Greenville, North Carolina; 8. Brian Hunt, Derry, New Hampshire.
e-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com