X Games 17: Bob Burnquist Has Shown He's the Complete Skateboarder

Watching the X Games on and off for the last 10 years, I've come to realize Bob Burnquist is as complete of a skateboarder as it gets.

Back in 2000, at X Games Six, Burnquist performed a fakie 5.0 to kick flip off of a bar that had been placed above the halfpipe during the Best Trick competition on his first try attempting the trick. The reactions of both Burnquist and the commentators is a piece of YouTube gold. 

Never wanting to be yesterday's news, Burnquist made 2000 a distant memory just a year later at X Games 7, when he proceeded to drive fellow skateboard legend Tony Hawk to a state of hoarseness while commentating on the Skateboard Vert Freestyle Event, during which Burnquist received a gold medal-winning score of 98.00 on his final run.

In 2007 and 2008, he showed his ability to go big, winning gold in Skateboard Big Air. Each time he won on his final run, snatching away gold medals from Jake Brown and Danny Way.

In 2010, Burnquist, along with Brown, attempted to become the first person to complete a 900 in a Skateboard Big Air competition. Neither was able to complete the trick, though both came very close. (Burnquist later became the first skateboarder to land a fakie to fakie 900 on a mega ramp.)

Brilliant vert skateboarders who can go big with ease such as Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Shaun White and Sandro Dias, very rarely, if ever, have shown such beautiful technical mastery on their boards the same way Burnquist did in 2000 and 2001.

At the same time, technical boarders like Colin McKay and Rodney Mullen have failed to go as big with such creativity as Burnquist did in 2007, 2008 and in 2011, when he won his third X Games Big Air gold medal.

In all, Burnquist has won 20 X Games medals, eight of them gold. Each mark puts him near the top of the most decorated skateboarders of all time.