Meanwhile, in deepest, darkest Africa the Maloof brothers have flown in a bunch of A-list skateboarders to compete in the strangely placed Maloof Money Cup in Kimberly, South Africa. Luan Oliveira walked with the $100,000 first prize, but we still don’t understand any of the logic behind the entire event. Seriously, what is the Maloof angle? Is it De Beers diamonds? Does Kimberly just need to spend tourism dollars? Someone, please explain it to us, because the skaters we’ve spoken to can’t explain it either.
During the Buffalo Bill Downhill race this weekend on Colorado’s Lookout Mountain a skater from Salt Lake City, Utah was taken out by a deer that decided to cross the road directly into a pack of downhillers, according to a story on WPTV.com.
7NEWS said the skateboarder, who is from Salt Lake City, walked away with serious scrapes, but no broken bones. The deer was OK.
The skateboarding community lost another good one on Thursday, September 28, 2012 when Ian Barry, 22, of Encinitas, California died from injuries he sustained in an apparent tumble down a cliff at Encinitas’ Moonlight Beach, according to a story in on NBC San Diego.
At about 3 a.m., Ian Barry was found at the base of a 100-foot cliff in Encinitas by a bystander who was out for a walk. . . . Barry, a well-known skater in the North County known by his friends as “Poods,” was discovered with life-threatening injuries and was unconscious when medics arrived.
Barry was then transported to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California, but succumbed to his injuries. Barry had been a Brixton team skater who was then hired to work at the Oceanside, California based clothing company. He’d worked at Brixton for the past three years and was an important member of the Brixton Family, according to company co-founder David Stoddard.
Ian “Poods” Barry. Never met anyone with a heart as big as his. He thought of everyone before himself. He loved his family, friends, skateboarding and motorcycles. We’re going to miss skating our bowl and going on adventures with you brother. Thanks for always making us feel special and showing us how we should all love one another. You had a personality like no other and we’re proud to call you our family. Your legacy will live on forever.
See, Supra likes women. Really, regardless of what you may have heard they must or they wouldn’t have designed a new pink Skytop for women called the Pink Party Skytop in collaboration with Elyse Walker.
“Pink Party is a celebration of women, fashion, friendship, and life,” said Elyse Walker. “We are celebrating eight years of philanthropy supporting one of the premier medical and research centers in the world. It is without question that this year’s Pink Party will be bigger and better than ever.”
Jeff Grosso rounds up skaters Eddie Elguera and Salman Agah to discuss the origins of “fake” and “switch.” For those who could never figure out the difference, this could be required viewing.
Speaking of Mountains, in three minutes with Lance Mountain you’ll learn more than spending a week with a stack of old skate mags. The highlight of this episode of Free Lunch is Lance talking about his father’s Museum of Military Memorabilia.
About half the collection is British military. Dazzling dress uniforms for the British Dragoons, Hussars and Lancers stand at attention. One case contains bandsmen’s uniforms from each of the five regiments of foot guards of the Household Division, more commonly known as the Life Guards.
Last weekend Sessions and the skate community celebrated the life of legendary skateboarder Tim Brauch at the 14th Annual Tim Brauch Memorial Contest in San Jose and Scotts Valley, California.
Its actually quite difficult to decide what the best part of the bowl is with Pro, Masters (40 and older), From (15 and younger), Amateur, and Girls divisions each giving a fantastic show. Every year the contest brings out a strong line up of pros- this years roster included Michael Brookman, Josh Rodriguez, and Sky Siljeg (pictured above) just to name a few. The competition’s Masters division regularly brings out legendary veterans like local Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, and Christian Hosoi, skaters that turned pro more than 30 years ago, but continue to shred hard. These skaters created some of the sports most well known tricks and built the sport into what is today.
German pro skateboarder Philipp Schuster has turned his “remount hunting retreat in Salzburg, German” into a smallish indoor training facility, according to a post on Dornob.com.
After stripping out the parts already falling apart, Schuster reintegrated traditional elements that fit the typology of a rural German residence, but woven together with new ramps and bumps for skateboarding throughout.
This is hardly worth mentioning, but (big surprise) Nike has reportedly gotten everything it can out of both the US Open of Surfing and the City of Huntington Beach, California and is kicking their whole sponsorship deal to the curb, according to an interview on a Shopping Eating and Surfing blog.
As one would expect Nike’s Global Action Sports VP Sandy Bodecker believes Nike did so much for the event, the sport, and the entire world of action sports that the company (and all its brands) can now move on to other venues and spread their all-knowing amazingness.
Connecting with millions of fans in the heart of the action sports community was amazing experience for both brands,” Bodecker said. “Working with IMG and the City of Huntington Beach allowed for the elevation of the US Open of Surfing to positively impact a broader audience and introduce them to the power and excitement of sport. . . In putting on an event with such large exposure, we pushed our teams to find an authentic connection to stay true to the core of the sport and lifestyle. . . The biggest challenge ahead for the US Open is to bring the energy from Huntington Beach to even more fans across the world.
In the Orange County Register, Nike apologist Evan Slater (Hurley PR) said Nike did what it came to do in terms of elevating the contest and attracting more top surfers.
“But we also strive to constantly innovate and evolve. For us, we’ve decided to export what we created at the U.S. Open and invest it into other aspects of our business, like a renewed athlete focus and new and exciting ways of connecting with millions of kids.”
As we’ve said before, Nike’s only interest in action sports is that they occasionally believe our sports will help them sell more branded product to more people. When that stops working they’ll move on to something else.
