X GAMES IX: SKATEBOARD VERT: WINTER UPSTART WARMS TO TASK TEEN RIVALS RECORD-SETTERS.

Byline: Ramona Shelburne  Staff Writer

Bob Burnquist has won eight X Games gold medals and had the highest score in Thursday night's preliminary of the skateboarding Vert competition. Andy Macdonald is a skateboarding legend with 12 X Games medals and the second-highest score in the preliminaries.

So why is some mop-haired 16-year-old who had only the seventh-best score of the night stealing all of their thunder?

Four-time Winter X Games gold-medalist snowboarder Shaun White qualified for tonight's Vert final, the signature event of the X Games, with a 85.67 on his first run and kept alive his goal of becoming the first athlete to win medals in the Winter and Summer X Games in the same year.

After that run, White left his growing legions of fans with a message: ``I've got more in store for sure. I just have to decide when to pull it out.''

And with White, who became a professional skateboarder this summer and is competing in only his fourth skateboarding competition, that could mean just about anything.

White gave those in attendance a glimpse of what he might try in tonight's final when he stayed an extra 15 minutes after the competition ended to practice a ``Melon 720,'' a snowboarding trick only he has landed in a skateboarding competition.

``I tried to do that in my second run and fell. ... I couldn't get it out of my head until I landed it,'' White said.

After six or seven attempts, White was able to land the trick, which drew a huge ovation from the crowd.

Pierre-Luc Gagnon, last year's gold medalist in Vert and Vert Best Trick, qualified on the last run of the night. After falling on his first run and scoring only a 73.33, Gagnon, who skating fans refer to as ``PLG,'' scored an 87 in his pressure-packed second run to qualify in fifth place.

Also qualifying on his final run was six-time X Games medalist Bucky Lasek, who recovered from a fall on his first run by scoring a 86.33 on his second run, good for sixth place.

Brazilian Sandro Dias, whose girlfriend Fabiola da Silva won the women's Aggressive In-Line Park competition earlier in the day, qualified in ninth place with a 84 on his first run. Dias won the event in the Latin X Games and the Globe World Cup this year.