FTK is out.....

Grind for Life Final Stop at Kona 9/22

Mike Rodgers Drinks Steaz...http://www.steazenergy.com/

Join the Army and Skate

Now they've got a mini-ramp! Be safe and get home soon, boys. Next time your rolling around think about our boys over in Iraq, they are being killed everyday. http://www.skateboarding.com/skate/stories/article/0,23271,1117258,00.html

Skateboarding in the Olympics?

The discussion seems to have shifted from "should" to "when"
http://skateboard.about.com/od/events/a/Olympics.htm

The discussion about skateboarding in the Olympics has been going on for quite some time, with a lot of energy behind it. Lately however, the discussion has changed from "Should skateboarding be in the Olympics?" to "When will skateboarding enter the Olympics?".
Many skaters are concerned that if skateboarding becomes an Olympic sport, the heart of skating will be changed. Skateboarding is an individualistic and independent activity, and many feel that if it is forced into the mold of the Olympics, it will lose its edge and change into something mainstream.
The International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC) held an open meeting at ASR in the fall of 2004, and I was fortunate enough to be there.They discussed many things, but the most heated topic was skateboarding becoming an Olympic sport. Gary Ream, president of the USA Skateboarding Association led the discussion. "We're Damned if we do, damned if we don't," said Ream. He explained that if the world of skateboarding doesn't pull together and enter the Olympics on purpose, someone else will eventually succeed in entering it, and then we will have no influence over what it will look like. "It's going to happen with or without us," Ream explained.
The difficulty is that skateboarding is fiercely independent. Therefore, there is no one single governing body for the sport. In fact, Ream even discussed that they aren't entirely sure they want to call skateboarding a sport. Perhaps instead it should be an exhibition.
Without one leading organization, many small groups have tried over the years to claim the title of Skateboarding's Ruling Body. USA Roller Sports (USARS) was one of the loudest, but plenty of these groups didn't even have anything to do with skateboarding! Roller blade organizations, television networks - Clarkie from Real Skate even says she knows of a soccer organization that tried to lay the claim.
On July 19th, 2004 a meeting of skaters from all of the planet was held in Dortmund, Germany to talk about forming an "International Skateboarding Federation". After much debate, the ISF was voted on and formed. The ISF is now taking the position and talking with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about skating becoming an Olympic sport. However, before skateboarding can be added, Gary Ream explained that a sport would have to be removed from the Olympics to make room. Apparently there is a limit on the number of medals that can be awarded, and the Olympics is currently at that limit.
Unfortunately, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognize an international skateboarding federation. And so, skateboarding would have to be added as a discipline under another umbrella. The process is complicated and long, but it's in the works, and a lot of people are highly invested in making it happen.
"The IOC wants to make the program relevant for young people," IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said, according to Yahoo Sports. "We are doing our best to introduce skateboarding for 2012," UCI sports director Olivier Quejuiner told the London Evening Standard. "We have a clear strategy ... The venue could be wonderful. All we need now is the green light from the IOC. Technically, logistically and in terms of cost, it would not be a problem to stage the event in 2012."
As you can see, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. But, the discussion is no longer should skateboarding enter the Olympics, but when, and what will it look like.

Olympic skaters call for more ramps in the UK

http://www.ukskate.org.uk/For_Skateboarders/Skatepark_News/Olympic_skaters_call_for_more_ramps_20070820444/

Written by Kevin Parrott
Monday, 20 August 2007
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From:
Norwich Evening News
18th August 2007
Two Olympic skating hopefuls from Wymondham have called for more skate ramps in the region to help them realise their half-pipe dreams.'Vert' skateboarders Paul-Luc Ronchetti, 14, and schoolmate Sam Beckett, 15, who are among the best in the country at their sport despite their young age, are currently forced to travel to Birmingham every Sunday to practise.The reason they have to travel to Birmingham is because there are no vert ramps - half-tube shaped ramps with vertical sides - in the county - and only six nationally.This means the lads are only able to hone their skills, including complex jumps, flips and twists, for a few hours once a week.The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is currently considering proposals to make skateboarding, and vert skating, an Olympic sport, which could see the first competition take place at the London 2012 games, when the boys will be 19.But despite their training drawbacks, the boys' talent is obvious - earlier this month Paul-Luc secured third place in the X Games Amateur Vert Championships in California competing against skaters from across the world.While last weekend Paul-Luc came fourth and Sam third in the Rip Curl Boardmasters championships in Newquay, Cornwall, after going up against global competition.Paul-Luc, from Holly Blue Road, said: “It would make a lot of difference if we had better quality facilities and if they would make more verts and spend more money on them. “When we go once a week it's a long, hard session. If we had one hour a day it would make a lot of difference. If it gives me five more years hopefully I will be able to get into the London Olympics - that would be my goal.”His mum Liz, who usually spends her Sundays driving the pair to the Birmingham ramp, said: “It would make a difference because if you go up on a Sunday to Birmingham you could be there for just one hour, and he might sprain his ankle so he can't skate any more. If there was one just down the road it wouldn't matter.”Last year, Norwich City Council announced it was putting on hold plans for a world-class skate park in the city because of a lack of cash.The £300,000 Eaton Park scheme was to have been made from concrete sunk into the ground with ramps and a concrete cradle for skateboarders and BMX bikers to perfect their techniques.Leader of the council Steve Morphew said today: “The council is committed to building a skate park, and a £300,000 project is already planned. “This is one of our top 10 priorities, to be completed as soon as we have available capital funding.” Chris Sturgess, owner of skate shop Revolutionz in Lower Goat Lane, who has led the campaign for the skatepark, said: “We would like areas at the new park that can be used as a vert style or try and incorporate that style of skating into it.”And Chris Cook, head of leisure, culture and countryside services at South Norfolk Council, added: “The vert equipment he wants is hugely expensive, which is why it is only found at six centres of excellence around the country.“There is a Big Lottery funded skate park being developed for Wymondham - which both Paul-Luc and Sam are involved with and which the council and local councillors helped win.”

Rip Curl Board Masters 2007 in England

PLR placed 4th at the Board Masters in England one week after taking Bronze in X-Games 13 AM Vert Contest..Renton Miller taking out all the young Guns and finishing 1st...

http://www.surfersvillage.com/surfing/29368/news.htm

The hottest up and coming halfpipe skateboarder in the UK: Paul-Luc Ronchetti has just joined the Team Extreme line up. Aged 13 he can pull some of the hardest tricks in halfpipe skating including the frontside rodeo. To be at his level at his age is incredible. With a string of competition wins under his belt and can give the top UK pro skaters a run for their money. Competition results so farw: 4th place in Tampa Am Vert finals, January 06, 1st place U16 Comp at the Urban Games, the Natural Born Skaters, the Ripcurl Boardmasters plus regional comps at Epic, Birmingham5th place LG Action Sports Amateur vert Manchester, 05.In 2006 at age 13 he progressed from U16 category to the senior/pro (sponsored) division. He won the Mount Hawke vert jam in January, 4th place in Tampa Am, Florida, 6th place in Etnies European championships, Rome, 1st place Epic (blockless combat) comp, Birmingham, 2nd place Natural born Skaters Blackpool.So far in 2007 P-L placed 6th in the Tampa Am final and won the first leg of the UKSA championship series at Mount Hawke Cornwall

Demo at Clairemont for the Children of Sudan

Mathis Ringstorm put togeteher a small demo for the Children of Sudan....For most, this was there first exposore to skateboarding. Thanks to all the pros who were there Adam Taylor,Bucky Lasek,Neil Hendrix, Alan Young, Rob Lorfice,Dylan Taylor, Danny Mayer, Alex Perelson, Lea Taylor,Jean Postec,Elliot Sloan, Andy Mac. Tony Mag and the staff at the YMCA.

Mathis Ringstorm

More photos in the Gallery........

Chariots of fire: The skate kids going for Olympic gold

Chariots of fire: The skate kids going for Olympic gold
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2791074.ece

Britain's next sport stars aren't on the track, or pounding up the lanes at the local pool – they're on the street, practising their kickflips. As skateboarding prepares to go Olympic, Ed Caesar catches up with the fastest kids on four wheels

Published: 23 July 2007
He's 14. He hasn't yet started his GCSEs. His voice is in the squeaky space between treble and baritone. He mumbles his words. His body is undeveloped, and his blond hair falls in innocent, Michelangelo curls down his neck. He is, in short, a boy. But boy, what a boy.
Paul-Luc Ronchetti may look like a scrap, but he is already one of Britain's top skateboarders. He and his Norwich schoolfriend, Sam Beckett, 15, are taking half-pipe or "vert" skating to new levels. They're beating older, professional riders in Britain, and competing with the world's best at competitions in Europe and America. Last week, at the Mystic Cup in Prague, Beckett placed eighth and Ronchetti 12th. Earlier in the summer, Ronchetti won both major British competitions against a field of professionals, with Beckett snapping at his heels.
TIMELINE RIDER AM Vert Bronze Medel Winner at X-Games 13...
Paul-Luc RonchettI

Competitive skateboarding might sound like a contradiction in terms. Since "sidewalk surfing" was invented in California in the 1950s, skateboarding's ethos has been fiercely anti-establishment, baggy-trousered and laid-back. Skaters weren't competitors. They were hipsters who left point-scoring to the jocks. But as computer games and extreme-sports channels have made skateboarding a globally popular activity, competitive boarding has entered the athletic mainstream. Now, on a well-organised and well-funded circuit of professional tours, the world's best skaters fight for medals – and pots of money.
Skateboarding's arrival in the mainstream will be complete when the International Olympic Committee declares it an official sport for the 2012 London Olympics. Vert skating – the discipline in which Ronchetti and Beckett excel – is set to be the gold riband event. Competitors will be judged on their ability to gain height off the lip of the half-pipe, pull tricks, and land with style.
Neil Danns, 44, is a one-time British vert skating champion who now skates with Beckett and Ronchetti in Dairylea's travelling exhibition outfit, Team Extreme. He believes both boys have what it takes to be world-beaters.
"It's unbelievable what they can do," says Danns. "Paul-Luc can already pull 540s, 360 kickflips, Gay Twists. I couldn't do what he can do now at any stage in my career. That's how fast these kids are learning. The level they've got to in four years used to take the best people in my generation 10 years. Part of that is the sport evolving, but part of it is these kids being amazingly talented."
Both Ronchetti and Beckett have caught the eye of some legends of the sport. The iconic American skateboarder Tony Hawk – whose video games have done more to make the sport globally popular than anything else – emailed The Independent to deliver his verdict on Ronchetti. "He's got good style," Hawk wrote. "And he seems to be comfortable doing the most difficult tricks required to be a serious competitor."
High praise. But which skater is better? "They're both at about the same level," says Danns. "One of them will learn a new trick and pass it on to the other one. They really spur each other on. Skateboarding's a good sport, in that there's a friendly spirit around it. People do try and help each other out. If I had to say, I'd say that, at the moment, Paul-Luc is marginally ahead of Sam. But the pecking order changes every six months. It's great to watch."
It's unbelievable to watch. At Creation Skatepark, in the old bus depot in Moseley, Birmingham, Ronchetti shows off his skills. Having climbed a shaky ladder, he straps on protective undershorts, helmet and knee pads, drops off the lip of the 14-foot half-pipe, accelerates through the dip and shoots off the far lip. At the zenith of his trajectory, 5-6ft from the edge of the half-pipe – that's 19 or 20ft from the floor – Ronchetti reaches a moment where stillness meets frenetic activity, as he grabs his skateboard and performs whichever outrageous trick has taken his fancy. He shows no nerves. If he doesn't
feel he can pull off a trick, he simply "bails", landing on his chunky kneepads and sliding to the floor, his skateboard crashing down behind him.
Having baited gravity for 20 minutes, Ronchetti joins me by the half-pipe with Danns and another member of Team Extreme, the promising 18-year-old street skater Jak Tonge. "I'd like to be a pro," says Ronchetti. "But I'll only do it when I'm ready. Hopefully I'll know when I want to skateboard as a job. At the moment, I just really like the competitions, because you get to ride with all the pros. The big names are quite friendly: they push you on, and give you tips. I do get nerves when I'm skating with them, but the nerves seem to boost my airs higher and help me pull tricks. I think you need nerves."
Ronchetti, like Danns and Tonge, is excited about the prospect of skateboarding becoming an Olympic discipline. All three skaters dismiss the claims of some in the skate community who say that competition ruins their sport. "Anything which gets money into the sport has got to be great," says Tonge. "The Olympics will hopefully mean more skate parks." Danns agrees. "It's got to be positive, hasn't it? What we do takes years to get good at. So if the Olympics can encourage people to start skating young, that's great."
If the London Olympics means more skate parks, it can't come soon enough. At present, Ronchetti and Beckett travel every weekend from Norwich to Creation Skatepark to train. They make this gruelling five-hour round-trip because there are only two competition-level half-pipes in Britain: one in Blackpool, and this one in Birmingham. Luckily, Ronchetti and Beckett both have generous, patient parents willing to ferry them about. Nonetheless, as talented as they are, a single day a week is not going to produce future Olympic champions.
"I'm really loving touring around doing the comps," says Beckett. "That's pretty much what I do every weekend now – I'm away a lot, and skating all these great competitions with great skaters. But the vert skating scene in Britain is not great. There was talk of the skate park in Birmingham closing down recently, but I don't think that's happening now. Hopefully, the Olympics will mean that they'll build some more ramps for us."
Ronchetti and Beckett may be sanguine about the lack of facilities near where they live, and the long trips that have become a regular feature of their lives. But those at the top end of British skateboarding are battling with the Government to inject more cash into their sport. Kevin Parrott, 29, the chairman of the UK Skate Association, is particularly aggrieved. "Here we have two of the best young vert skaters in Europe," says Parrott, "and they are two hours and 45 minutes away from their nearest ramp. If we are going to produce someone who is on the level of the American, Australian or European pros, we need more than what we've got. It's a joke.
He points out that Creation Skatepark – known until recently as Epic – almost closed down when the former owners ran out of money. "If that would have gone, Paul-Luc and Sam would have had to travel six hours to Blackpool every weekend. I spoke to Sam when there was talk of Epic closing, and asked him what he'd do. He said it would be cheaper for him to get a flight and skate abroad every weekend. It's amazing that a 15-year-old kid is that dedicated, but it's madness that he would have had to resort to that.
"It's infuriating, because these kids are active in sport," Parrott continues. "They don't sit in front of the television or the PlayStation. They're trying so hard. But there's no support for them. None of the private skate parks in Britain get funding from a private pot. If someone wanted to start up a park in Norwich, they'd have the same problem that everyone else has had – it's incredibly hard to keep them going just with money on the door."
While the adults wrangle, Ronchetti skates. It's an extraordinary life. During the week he's a normal 14-year-old getting on with school and having fun with his friends. At the weekends, huge crowds watch him compete at major events. Soon, Ronchetti will enter the biggest skateboarding competition of them all, at the X-Games in California, as Britain's only skateboarding representative. That doesn't change anything at home, though. "My friends from home don't really know about what I do," he says. "They know why I've been away. But when I get back from somewhere, they'll just ask me, 'Did you win?' and then we don't talk about it. We don't talk about skateboarding a lot. They're just my normal friends." They must be jealous of the swag he brings home. All his kit is sponsored. He gets skate shoes from Etnies, clothes from Billabong, decks (boards) from Timeline, trucks (wheel connections) from Independent, wheels from Bones. He also receives some money from Team Extreme for any exhibition events he performs in.
Beckett has similar sponsorship deals, and is likewise too busy enjoying himself to worry about the future. "I've definitely considered turning pro," he says, "but I'll keep my options open. I'll just take it as far as I can take it and see what happens. I'm going to do my GCSEs, and then two years at college, but I'll probably delay uni to give [skateboarding] a go. I'll see what's going on. I just love the skating so much at the moment.
"I enjoy skating with people who are so much better than me," he continues. "Sandro Dias, who won at Prague, is the world's number one. I was there, with him. Obviously, I'm not going to win it, so I just go out there and do my best and see what happens. There's no pressure on me. And the more I enjoy it, the better I do. I think in maybe a year or two years, though, I'll be able to take those guys on and have a chance of winning it."
Is there any rivalry between Ronchetti and Beckett? "We're friends," says Beckett. "But there's definitely a little bit of rivalry there. If anything, I think that helps us both, because we push each other on. I think we'd both love to be at the Olympics. It's definitely something to aim for."
Whether the pair can realistically aim for the Olympics entirely depends on the support they get in the coming years. It would be a huge waste of talent if either were forced to quit their sport because our facilities are not up to scratch. It would be doubly shaming for the host nation to miss out on two serious medal chances.
It doesn't have to be that way. Somebody build the boys a ramp.
How big business climbed on board
When 10-year-old Bart Simpson takes on a dare to skateboard naked through the streets of Springfield in The Simpsons Movie you know the sport has returned. The global worth of skateboarding is now said to be an estimated $5bn (£2.5bn) in sales a year, but British advertisers have been slow to pick up on the financial rewards to be found among young, affluent enthusiasts.
Because of the lucrative sponsorship deals for brands of shoes, clothing, and skateboard paraphernalia, US prodigies are now finding themselves at the centre of a feeding frenzy as agents scout out skateparks and half-pipes hoping to snap up young talent.
Two of the brightest stars of the scene are the nine-year-old twins Nic and Tristan Puehse, from California. They are already a global phenomenon. A YouTube video featuring the boys has been watched at least 2.5 million times since it was posted at the start of the year, and they already boast sponsorship from Nike and the sports drinks company Gatorade.
Their father, Michael, started sending videotapes to possible sponsors when they were just six years old. "If they continue to progress like they're doing, there's no doubt they're going to be pro," he told The New York Times.
This is not just fatherly bluster. So skilled are the boys that the California Amateur Skateboard League has created a new division for commercially sponsored skaters aged 10 and younger.
There are already 11 million skateboarders in America. And according to market research by the company Board-Trac, 43 per cent of them are aged between 6 and 11. For the youngsters who stick with it, the financial rewards are staggering. Ryan Sheckler, now 17, won his first X Games gold medal four years ago. He now earns nearly half a million dollar a year with sponsorship on top. And Nyjah Huston, who was only 11 when he first took part in the X games last summer, has since earned tens of thousands of dollars in prize money.
It's all a bit worrying for Sonja Catalano, of the Skateboard League, who began organising skateboarding events 28 years ago with Frank Hawk, father of the skateboarding megastar Tony Hawk.
"We didn't used to have any parents," she says of the huge surge in parental involvement in the business. "That's what drew a lot of kids to skateboarding, and that's what drew a lot of kids to skateboard contests in the first place. It was their thing," she says. All that has changed.
Skateboarding was about rebellion when it started out on the LA sidewalks of the 1970s. A rite of passage for any youngster was being chased out of a shopping mall by a security guard, or better still, the cops. Soon they were emptying stranger's swimming pools in the middle of the night to use the pool as a half-pipe.
The prize-winning author Bret Anthony Johnston was one of those early rebels who went on to become a professional skateboarder. "Skateboarding is now what Little League was ten and 20 years ago' he says "and its unprecedented popularity and commercialisation may soon be its undoing.
"Essentially, skateboarding is an enterprise of nonconformity. Skaters have always been one step removed from mainstream society, so when the masses try to consume – and profit from – skateboarding, the sport has to reinvent itself, to revert back to its fundamental and simple state."
That may be some time away, to judge by the parents and talent scouts who now turn out to skate-boarding competitions. All want to sign someone like 8-year-old Drake Riddiough, who was picked up by Jason Crum, of Half Pint Skateboards in California, and who is now one of eight sponsored boarders and the envy of the skatepark.
Such is the hype that Crum says he keeps fending off youngsters and parents seeking sponsorship. "The majority of the damage control I've had to do as a sponsor of little kids is avoiding some of the parents," he says. "Whenever I come back from a road trip, I always come back to a couple of jaded emails."
Peter Townend, a former world surfing champion, whose son is a top skater, says: "Without good advice, you just get eaten alive by all these sharks swimming around in the water."
Things have improved for skateboarders over the years. Unlike Britain, where skateboarding is still considered a minority "hobby", millions have been spent on the sport in the US. Countless free municipal skateparks have been built, allowing young children to spend hours skating, with-out terrifying pedestrians.
"As is always the case, in this country, commercial success has legitimised the sport, and made it palatable and viable in a capitalist society," says Bret Johnston, whose book Corpus Christi: Stories was named Book of the Year in The Independent two years ago.
He points out that many skaters from its last heyday have gone on to become artists, physicians, mathematicians. "I have faith in the individual skaters and the sport as a whole," he says "So many of them still skate, that I'll be very curious to see who's still on the ramp in 20 years."

AST Dew Tour Vans Invitational Portland Oregon

Buster

http://www.astdewtour.com/

All the results and current standings can be found.....

Buster has seen all....Skating around the World...

Some Photos at Practice

Adam & Buster finding a line..

More Kona 30th on go211.com

http://www.go211.com/videos/758

Skate Park of Tampa All Ages Contest.....

10th place Dave Kovarik 17yo, Timeline, Destructo, Ninja, GSZ, from Palm Bay

Timeline repesenting at the Skatepark of Tampa

Dylan Durkin Coming up from Cocoa Beach....
31st Dylan Durkin 13yo, Globe, Timeline, Cocoa Skate Park

http://www.skateparkoftampa.com/spot/article.aspx?id=846

Check out all the results on the SPOT site, the Jam format is sick!!

4th place Jordan Price 13yo Fox, Nixon, Timeline, Globe
Port Orange, FL

Jordan going all over the Country riding it all...

28 th place, Dalton Dern 15 Etnies, Timeline, Ducer Cruzer from Apopka

Free Flow Denver

http://www.astdewtour.com/modules.php?name=FFTEventPages&pa=showpage&pid=42&subnav=FFT&page=Event

Check this site for results and the story.....

Dylan Taylor 1st Place

www.freeflowtour.com

Jordan Price 2nd Place

Rachel Reinhard New Timeline Ladies Team Rider..

Jordan Taking it to the Street Course making the Semi-Final..

Trifecta Results

Gaby and Lea Skating with the top Women in the World. Check out these site sfor all the results.

http://www.wcsk8.com/2007/results.lasso

http://www.wcsk8.com/2007/NALadiesbowlrankings.lasso

Buck Smith is the Master from Florida.

Billabong Skate Tour at the Cocoa Beach Skatepark August 11

Sean Jeffries on Tour with Innes, check these Dates

Hub of Halfpipes Rises in Corner of California

CARLSBAD, Calif., July 31 — Ten years ago Bucky Lasek moved west with his wife, newborn daughter and commitment to a career in skateboarding, settling in this laid-back seaside community in northern San Diego County http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/sports/othersports/01xgames.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185968119-Ikl0AJDb+BVsXBHXl65NRw

The New York Times
Northern San Diego County is home to many pro skateboarders.
Lasek had been living in Baltimore, commuting an hour to the nearest skate ramp on weekends. In bad weather, he drove to an indoor ramp in Philadelphia.
“If you want to be a movie star, you have to move to Hollywood,” Lasek said. “To be a top professional skateboarder, I had to move out here because skating on the weekends wasn’t cutting it for me. Out of sight was literally out of mind, as far as sponsors go.”
This week Lasek, 34, will compete in vertical skateboarding, in which riders pull tricks on a massive halfpipe, at the X Games in Los Angeles and Carson, Calif.
Lasek has won seven X Games gold medals. About his success, he said, “It wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t move out here.”
Carlsbad is part of a region in northern San Diego County known as North County, which includes communities like Encinitas, Oceanside, Vista and Rancho Santa Fe. They make up an area that is to vertical skateboarding what Hollywood is to the movie and television industry, without the tour buses and the maps to the stars’ homes.
Seven of the 10 skaters who will compete Sunday in the men’s skateboard vert discipline at the X Games live in the North County region, as do at least four of the female skateboarders. The other three male skateboarders live within an hour’s drive.
There are several reasons skaters are concentrated in the area. For one, most skateboard companies are nearby. There are also several large ramps for training, similar to those used in competition. But perhaps most important is the presence of other top skaters.
Bob Burnquist, a four-time X Games gold medalist from Brazil, lives in rural Vista with the professional skateboarder Jen O’Brien and their daughter. Their backyard has a sprawling complex of ramps, where other professional skaters often ride together.
“As far as the vert skating world, there’s not many of us that can ride good,” Burnquist said. “If you ride alone in your own world, you can only get so good.”
“You want to surround yourself with talent,” he added. “Usually you want to surround yourself with people who are better than you so you can get somewhere.”
Shaun White, who grew up in Carlsbad, said, “If you want to know what your biggest competitor’s new trick is, you’ve got to be down there watching him skate and skating with him.”
This spirit of competition and the presence of some of the world’s best ramps lured Mathias Ringstrom to the region from Stockholm 13 years ago.
“At that point, if you wanted to make it in skateboarding, you had to be here,” he said.
Although a growing number of top professional skateboarders have their own private ramps, several still use public skate parks, particularly at the Y.M.C.A. in Encinitas, which features a 13-foot-tall halfpipe used in the X Games.
When Lasek is not skating at the private ramp of the icon Tony Hawk, he goes to the Y.M.C.A. or three other public skate parks within a 30-minute drive of his home.
Hawk grew up in the area. So did Danny Way, who launched over the Great Wall of China on his skateboard in 2005. Hawk settled in Carlsbad; Way in Encinitas.
“It’s a very skate-oriented culture,” Lasek said. “It’s a small spot where everyone lives.
“I’ll go into the Coffee Bean and they’ll be like, ‘Tony was just in here,’ ” he said, referring to Hawk.
With skateboarding increasing in prominence on television through events like the X Games, skaters have attained new levels of fame, making the area like Hollywood in at least some respects.
White, 20, was catapulted to international stardom when he won the gold medal in halfpipe snowboarding at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
He has since bought a house in Rancho Santa Fe. Before he put up a fence, White said, strangers would knock on his front door and introduce themselves. At grocery stores, families have followed him to see what he’s buying.
“You would think it’s mellow, but it’s not at all because everyone knows you,” White said.
Lasek’s fame and family have grown, too. He and his wife, Jen, have two daughters, ages 10 and 7, and a third on the way. Three years ago they moved into a spacious stucco house in the hilly horse country outside Encinitas.
A swimming pool sits outside his living room’s large picture window. Lasek plans to build another, larger pool, but not for swimming.
He showed off designs for a kidney-shaped concrete pool that would serve as his private skate park. It would be 13 feet deep and roughly 60 feet long and 40 feet wide. One estimate for the project was $200,000.
Ringstrom, who slept on couches or in his car when he arrived in the area, lives in a house in a subdivision of cul-de-sacs. The professional skateboarder Colin McKay lives across the street.
Neither of their small yards has room for a skateboard ramp. But Lasek’s house is a short drive away. And when he builds his backyard pool, his professional skater peers will be welcome.
Contemplating all the nearby places he could skate, Ringstrom said, “There is no better place for a vert skater.”

Timeline at Graffiti Contest 2007 7 yr Celebration

Jordan Price 1st place Mini-Ramp with a broken wrist, Dylan Durkin 3rd place Sponsored Street and Dane Kovarik with a first place in Sponsored Street. Check the site for all the results ......

http://www.graffitiskatezone.com/seven_year_ann_results.htm

Oregon Trifecta World Cup 2007

http://www.oregontrifecta.com/

Lea Taylor and Gaby Ponce will be skating with the Top Pro Women at the Oregan Trifecta. Good luck.

Free Spirits Wonder How Olympics Will Treat Them

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4 — Mat Hoffman sat in a Staples Center locker room Friday night after the BMX freestyle Big Air event, his injured leg propped on a chair.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/sports/othersports/05xgames.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Reed Saxon/Associated Press
Mat Hoffman, at Staples Center on Friday, has successfully advocated for skateboarding and BMX freestyle to be in the 2012 Olympics.
When asked if he would compete at the debut of BMX freestyle at the 2012 Olympics in London, the 35-year-old Hoffman laughed and said his body was held together “with duct tape and zip ties.”
An icon in BMX freestyle, Hoffman is mostly retired from competition, but he finished sixth Friday in the Big Air event on the Mega Ramp.
Hoffman has been an advocate for his sport as president of the Action Sports International Federation and the International BMX Federation, the agencies responsible for working with the International Cycling Union to put action sports in the Olympics.
In June, after eight years of negotiations, the three groups reached an agreement for the 2012 Games in London, Hoffman said. It appears that skateboarding and BMX freestyle will be contested under the cycling banner, but the International Olympic Committee will make a final determination in two years.
Many athletes in skateboarding and BMX at the X Games here expressed concerns about how the Olympics would treat them
“That’s kind of my job to be really skeptical, too,” Hoffman said. “That’s why it’s taken so many years. If we had decided to pursue this under the original terms, it’s just not right. It’s not a progression to the roots of our sport.”
Kevin Robinson, who won the gold medal in the BMX freestyle Big Air, said, “The most important thing is we keep our integrity.”
I.O.C. President Jacques Rogge had asked the cycling body to assist skateboarding with entry to the Olympics. An I.O.C. spokeswoman said that adding action sports was part of an appeal to a younger audience.
Skateboarding and BMX freestyle would join two other action sports in the Olympics: BMX racing, which will make its debut next year in Beijing, and snowboarding.
Gary Ream, who owns the Woodward action sports camps in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and California, is the president of the International Skateboarding Federation. He has said many times that the I.O.C. could strong-arm skateboarding even without the cooperation of the athletes.
Many remember what happened with snowboarding during its Olympic debut as a skiing discipline at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
In 1994, snowboarding was placed under the auspices of the International Ski Federation. As a result, many snowboarders felt skiing had hijacked their sport, and several of the world’s top riders boycotted the 1998 Games. Competitors complained the ski federation’s judging criteria emphasized amplitude (height) over creativity, effectively stifling the sport’s most sacrosanct element: style. Such treatment caused concern for the professional skateboarder Bob Burnquist. He said many questions about how skateboarding fit in to the Games remained unanswered.
“I’m not going to be the one blocking it,” he said. “I’m just going to be the one asking the hard questions, at least for myself, whether I’m going to be involved or not.”
Burnquist, who is from Brazil, carried the Olympic torch on his skateboard before the 2004 Games in Athens.
“I dig what the Olympics is,” he said. “Obviously, I have a lot of respect for it. It’s an old tradition and it brings the world together.”
If the I.O.C. tries to impose its will on the skateboarders, “I won’t even be a part of it,” he said. “I’ll be a part of trying to make it not happen.”
One Olympian favors the addition of skateboarding. Shaun White, 20, who won a gold medal in snowboarding at the 2006 Winter Games, said he would be willing to compete in skateboarding, as he did at the X Games.
“Everybody has got mixed feelings, but it was super fun,” White said about the Winter Olympics.
Hoffman was 28 when the International Cycling Union, the sport’s international governing body, approached him about adding BMX freestyle to the Olympics. The group had seen him riding a ramp as part of the closing ceremony for the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Hoffman said the original goal was to include the sports in the 2008 Games, but the BMX freestyle community could not come to terms with the cycling union or the International Olympic Committee in time.
“We didn’t want to take what we had built and turn it into a traditional sport,” Hoffman said. “That was our main concern.”
NOTES
Jake Brown, the 32-year-old skateboarder who plunged 45 feet during the Big Air final at the Staples Center on Thursday, was released from a Los Angeles hospital Saturday afternoon. Reached by telephone, Brown said he sustained a bruised liver and lung, whiplash to his back and neck, a fractured right wrist and a small fracture to a vertebra. He said he hoped to resume skateboarding in two weeks.

X-Games 13 Vert Results

http://expn.go.com/expn/story?pageName=xg13_results_sktvert

http://expn.go.com/expn/slideshow?section=MotoX&id=2962610

Check out all the results.

Vert is not dead, it is alive and well.

Action Sports Superstar(Rock Star) Shaun White

PLG and Mathis Ringstrom watching Shaun White ..

Jake Brown
Media on Shaun..

D-Way
PLG Silver and Mathias Bronze

X-Games 13 Street Contest 2007 Results and photos

Jereme Rodgers Switch..

More Photos coming in the Gallery....

Nick Dompierre

http://expn.go.com/expn/slideshow?section=Skate&id=2960729

For More photos and results for Street check out the site.

The level of tricks with consistency was amazing......

http://expn.go.com/expn/story?pageName=xg13_results_skbstreetm_finals

Chris Cole Gold

Greg Lutzka Silver

Jereme Rodgers Bronze

Crowed was stoked!!!!!

X-Game 13 AM Results Vert

14 yo Timeline Rider from the UK, PLR taking the Bronze Medal AM Vert

http://expn.go.com/expn/index Check out all the results from X-Game 13

http://expn.go.com/expn/story?pageName=xg13_results_skbvertamateurs full results.

Chris O'Rielly 4th place

More Photos soon in the Gallery...

Blake Mercer Newnan Ga



13 yo Dylan Taylor

How they Finished at X-Game 13 AM Vert

1 Ben Hatchell

2 Josh Stafford

3 Paul Luc Ronchetti

4 Chris O'Rielly
5 Marcelo Bastos
6 Zach Miller
7 Dylan Taylor

8 Ronaldo Gomes

9 Taylor Smith

10 Nolan Monroe
11 Blake Mercer


Paul-Luc Ronchetti

Factory Skatepark in the House with the boy's

Buster Halterman 4th at X Game 13 Big Air.....

Checkout Busters Pro-Model......

Buster is a true living Legend in Skateboard!

Buster in the lights at Staple Center Layback 360 over the Gap with a Fish 540 in the 28' Quarter....

http://myespn.go.com/conversation/story?id=2124937&section=skate

http://expn.go.com/expn/index check out all the results...

http://expn.go.com/expn/story?pageName=xg13_results_skbBigAir

More photos coming in the Gallery.....

Flamingo Skate Shop / Between the Bridges Skate Contest /

http://www.flamingosk8shop.com/

http://www.betweenthebridgesfest.com/

Here are some of the heads showing up for this Garold Vallie, Pete Kelly, Bill Danforth, Jeremiah Babb, Kris Markovitch, and Graham Bickerstaff.
It should be a good time. Checkout the following links to get more info!