Seaholm, P-Rod Lead Panasonic Open Skate Park Qualifiers

Austen Seaholm had moments of brilliance on the AST Dew Tour in Skate Park last year but usually stumbled in the jam session portion of the contest. Now he’s started off strong in 2008 taking the top spot in the qualifers in Baltimore’s Panasonic Open Thursday.

He was helped, of course, by Ryan Sheckler and the other top two skaters (Greg Lutzka and Rodolfo Ramos) from 2007 going straight to the finals based on their year-end rankings from last season. P-Rod ended up second followed by rookie Chaz Ortiz (Ortiz did compete in last season’s PlayStation Pro).

Some familiar names missed the cut (the top nine advanced to join the three prequalified skaters) including Fabrizio Santos, Chad Fernandez and Jereme Rogers. For Rogers, a bad 2007 season continued with a poor start in ‘08.

The Skate Park finals will take place on Saturday from 2-3:30 p.m. ET and will air on NBC.

Chaz Ortiz cr. AST

Here’s the lineup for Saturday’s final (in order)

12. Michel Simonetto
11. Ricardo Oliveria
10. Chris Mendes
9. Wagner Ramos
8. Carlos De Andrade
7. Chad Bartie
6. Chaz Ortiz
5. Paul Rodriguez
4. Austen Seaholm
3. Rodolfo Ramos
2. Greg Lutzka
1. Ryan Sheckler

Skate Park Prelim Results – 2008 Panasonic Open
June 19, 2008 – Top Nine Advance

1st — Seaholm, Austen — 87.75
2nd — Rodriguez, Paul — 84
3rd — Ortiz, Chaz — 82.50
4th — Bartie, Chad — 80.75
5th — De Andrade, Carlos — 80.50
6th — Ramos, Wagner — 79.75
7th — Mendes, Chris — 79
8th — Oliveria, Ricardo — 78
9th — Simonetto, Michel — 77.75
———————————————-
10th — de Oliveira, Tulio — 77
11th — do Rosario, Danilo — 76.25
12th — Santos, Fabrizio — 76
13th — Peterson, Mike — 74.25
14th — Hyppolito, Fabio Sleiman — 73.25
15th — Fuenzalida, Danny — 73
16th — Cudlipp, Chris — 72.75
17th — Jones, Rodney — 72.25
18th — Parent, Thomas — 70
19th — Corrigan, Danny — 69
20th — Fernandez, Chad — 69
21st — Hendley, Tyler — 68.75
22nd — Therres, Mathieu — 68
23rd — Rogers, Jereme — 68
24th — Barr, Jason — 66.75
25th — Colamonico, Kurtis — 58.25
26th — Powers, Will — 56
27th — Stanton, Darell — 53.75

Skaters who missed the open qualifiers on Wednesday:

Chris Dobstaffm Gary Smith, Kyle Berard, Danny Cerezini, Ronnie Gordon, Kody Wright, Dayne Brummet, Sean Hayes, Pierre-Yves Frappier, Anthony Shetler, Tetsuharu Sai, Casey Rigney, Wolnei Dos Santos, Malcom Watson, Casey McDonald, Dale Hendricks Jr., Felix Arguelles.