Posts Tagged ‘Lincoln Ueda’
Rumble in Ramona 2 vert video madness
October 20th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Put together a good looking ramp, a bunch of core vert skaters, live music, dancing women, booze and what do you get? A damn fun weekend or just Rumble in Ramona 2 which shows that skateboarding does still have roots and you don’t need a big stadium to show it. This is my idea of a good session and the lucky skaters still have great weather!
Lincoln Ueda was announced the winner and with those airs, it’s no wonder…
The 2009 Eco Cup presented by Rude Boyz
May 28th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Big contest time with a big money purse going by the name Eco Cup 2009 will be taking place from June 12th till 15th in Santa Rosa, California with loads of big names in skating and some great bands including Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains or bands like Hightower which mix in Sabbath with punk and trash punk influences. Sounds like a bunch of fun to me!
Here’s the official news release straight from the website (
Rude Boyz Present is pleased to announce its partnership with the Harmony Festival and the installation of a world-class professional skate competition, the Eco-Cup, featuring a 175-foot long mini Mega Ramp with a mind-blowing 30-foot drop from an 18-foot vertical ramp (the equivalent of a three-story building), and the first-ever rail contest over a 20-foot gap with $40,000 in prize winnings, one of the biggest purses ever offered in Sonoma County!
Some of the world’s top skate legends will be present for demos, judging, and Meet and Greets, including Steve Caballero and Christian Hosoi on Friday June 12, plus Thrasher magazine skater of the year and X-Games Gold medalist Bob Burnquist, Danny Way, Andy MacDonald, and Buster Halterman. Also expected are Adam Taylor, Jake Brown, Lincoln Ueda, Rob Loriface, PLG and Omar Hasssan. The Eco Cup skate zone is surrounded by majestic redwoods and blue skies – close to the 101 Freeway but also a world away.
Adding to the excitement are the action sports-friendly headline bands including legendary punk/reggae/activist bands Dead Kennedys and Bad Brains with Pepper and Rebelution. Also performing over the weekend are Hightower, Tall Black Girls, Zepparella, Egypt Central, Whiskey Thieves, American Drag and Radioactive as MC. Approximately 10 of the world’s top skaters are expected to compete in the Best Trick and Best Jump categories, and prize money will be awarded to each competitor.
Brazil is blessed! Part 2
June 9th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Missed part 1 of the Brazil report from Allan Schmidt? Read it right now…
Rough spots, lack of company´s support and professional championships, absence of indoor skateparks for the rainy days, no money to invest in pricy film and photo equipment, inferior quality boards and a couple of other things are what makes the daily life of a Brazilian skateboarder a struggle. That´s what makes me think why do we have riders rising up from the ashes to become international icons? Why Brazil among so many other countries in similar conditions in the world??
Names like Bob Burnquist, Rodrigo TX, Carlos de Andrade, Lincoln Ueda, Fabrízio dos Santos, Adelmo Júnior, Rodrigo Petersen, Rodil de Araújo and Rodrigo Lima just to name a few, are great examples of what Brazil has accomplished in the last years. We´ve taken over a large portion of the worldwide scene and new talents are born everyday. Kids of 16 years of age are travelling to the USA, winning championships, signing contracts with big companies and getting video and magazine coverage.
Last year Felipe Gustavo, 17 years old, won the Street Tampa Am championship. This year he came to the final on 4th place, but two other young Brazilians, Pedro Barros e Ronaldo Gomes got 2nd and 3rd place in the Vert Am Finals. Just after that Pedro Barros went to the Florida Bowlriders Cup and took part of the amateur competition winning it on Saturday and being invited to ride in the professional division Sunday. Well, he finished in 3rd place!! The kid is 12 years old!!
These are a few random examples of what I´m talking about. Although championships never proved anything when it comes to skateboarding, they still help show us in which direction things might go.
I would dare to say that Brazil has the second largest skateboard scene in the world and this due to the fact that Brazilians are passionate just about everything they do. They ride with heart and soul, in the same way they live! If you have already seen Bob riding, or even Nilton Neves you know what I´m talking about. That´s true skateboarding!!!
People like Og de Souza show us how we usually turn hard situations into good opportunities, this guy used to use his skateboard as a way of transportation since the government not always treats us with the dignity we deserve, he is a husband, a father and a professional skater.
So, looking at things from a different point of view, to not be selfish, the question which comes to mind is what happens in – let´s say for example – China, India, Russia or South Africa? China has proven to have amazing street spots and now the largest skatepark in the world, but where are the Chinese skaters? India has also over 1 billion people, good weather, and not a large scene as far as I know. Russia has definitely major constructions and spots to skate, so where are the Russians? Or even South Africa which has lots of great professional surfers proving they like adrenalin rushes too. Where are these guys? How often do you hear about them? I respect and know each country has its values and I´m not underestimating anyone here, but trying to trace a parallel to understand which factors help us Brazilians to succeed. What makes us love skateboarding the way we do?
Maybe our dreams do.
Due to the fact that the largest portion of our street spots are super rough, (if you don´t believe me, ask Jake Phelps or Cardiel) our folks grow up hungry for marble ledges, smooth ground and perfect rails. Ask any guy here what his dream is and living in California or Barcelona will come on top of the list. Giving these guys good spots to ride is like giving a child lots of chocolate, they will enjoy every piece and make the most out of it! Add to the list some good boards and supplies, a photographer, a camera man and a full belly and you have a success recipe! I don´t mean that one really needs a photographer and a camera man to have fun. But some people do get excited to ride and get coverage material.
I can recall a 411VM Brazilian edition which puts to evidence some Brazilian guys with some memorable footage and that´s one thing I had never seen before since 411 already brought tours to the screen but never a edition with just skaters from a certain country. It´s so gratifying to see that we´re recognized just by doing something we love!
Thanks to those guys who chased their dreams, left home at an early age to a different country without even speaking the language and still made it happen, the reality is about to change drastically here. Skateparks are starting to pop up everywhere, associations are being created, new brands, tv shows and magazines showing up, international companies sponsoring events, and even the X Games was brought to Brazil this year in its full scale.
Thanks to these warriors, we are starting to be recognized as citizens, athletes, professionals. Thanks to these guys the society started to understand that we are a large portion of its own and therefore we have power. Power to vote, to change, to make it happen! We did it once without them and here we are still growing with or without their support.
The society starts to see now they better off staying on our side because this “enemy” they can´t fight!
Missed part 1 of the Brazil report from Allan Schmidt? Read it right now…
Brasil is blessed!
May 19th, 2008 / 1 Comment » / by Jonathan Young
Allan Schmidt is Europeskate’s first guest writer and I’m proud that he is bringing in some good background feelings and information about the Brazilian skateboard scene. Allan himself is a skateboard photographer who was one of the first featured photographers on this site. Be sure to check out his Flickr site, he’s quite good! >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/allan_schmidt/
Have you ever heard of a guy called Bob Burnquist?? Me neither! That could be the reality if Brasil didn’t have something special…
From upcomers to real legends, Brasil (Portuguese way of spelling) has always been a large nest when it´s comes to skateboard talents. But why not India? Or Russia? Or China? Or yet any other large and not considered “first world” country at all??? There could be many reasons for that, but the fact is Brasil starts with an advantage.
Brasil is blessed! The fifth largest country in the world with 8.547.403km² has predominantly tropical weather, vegetation going from rain forest to small desert regions, no natural threats such as hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, violent earthquakes, tornadoes, and a very fertile earth where everything grows. About the country´s beauty, I don´t think we need to talk about it since it is famous worldwide. Although something very interesting happens with the population.
Brazilian people are a product of many years of immigration, starting with the Portuguese introducing Africans slaves here to work and also having some of their own coming to live here. Then came the Dutch and the Spanish to explore the land a bit more and finally, during and after 1st and 2nd world war, we received massive amounts of immigrants consisting of Italians, Germans, Greeks, Japanese, Chinese, French, English, Austrians, more Spanish and Portuguese and a couple more nations. Ahh, almost forgot! Our native Indians are a part of this miscellaneous group of course. So, what makes this land so blessed?? Diversity I would say!!!
In my opinion, this big blend of cultural, historical and geographical facts are responsible for Brazilian people being so laid back, open minded, flexible, creative and happy! Lots of people have kept their traditional familiar habits and are still passing them on from generation to generation. I for example have German, Italian, Lebanese, Yugoslavian and native Brazilian blood, at home we still follow a couple of German traditions and apart from that, my first name is English, middle name Italian, last name German but I was born in Brasil.
After the slave ship, the closest we got to having a repressive system was a couple of years of dictatorship, which ended in the 60´s. This has given us a lot of freedom, opening our eyes and minds and helping us to be creative. Our system doesn’t restrain us, helping to see opportunities where the others mostly don’t!
If we talk about skateboarding, these characteristics are so important to succeed because skateboarding is all about creativity, flexibility, having no rules! It’s to think outside the box, something we were born and conditioned to do. According to research realized by Datafolha in September 2006, around 3,200,000 households have at least one inhabitant who owns a skateboard. Rumors have it that skateboarding is the second most practiced activity (just to not use the term sport) in whole country just coming after soccer (of course).
Skateboarding first arrived here in 1965 and since the 90´s it has grown a lot. In an age where internet and television are so accessible, kids from basically anywhere can see and learn what’s going on in the whole world, but still a question always comes to mind.Why isn’t the Brazilian skateboard industry stronger?
For the people here, Brazilian goodies such as decks, wheels, trucks were always a synonym of inferior quality. I for example, apart from the hardware, don’t have a single part in my skateboard which is produced here, just because I find the North American products to be more durable, lighter and better designed giving me the performance I expect. It seems like the market has been heating up since 2004 with new brands showing up, new magazines, videos, products and so on, but we still don’t see so many people being well paid by Brazilian companies. Neither do we see enough space for media professionals, forcing the folks out there to fight for a living and sometimes almost selling their soul.
Now there is an international big company invasion going on with names like Element, Circa, Volcom, Nike shoes, DC shoes, Emerica and so on putting teams together, opening stores in fancy neighborhoods, promoting events and injecting money and high-quality stuff into our market. It makes me wonder why aren’t the Brazilian companies up there yet. What do we still need to get there? Since some companies here were established 10 years ago or longer, why didn’t they reach that level of quality? In my opinion, there’s a big lack on athletes support! The guys running some of these companies don’t see that the athlete is this sport’s soul. They just want to get more without giving.
As a skateboard photographer, I already had people asking me to give away my photos, so they could use it in some kind of publicity, others refusing to pay a minimum price to have high quality material to use. The athlete is the company’s image and should be their most valuable asset. I have a friend who is at his soul a skater, maybe the most humble guy I’ve ever got to know and he does the gnarliest stuff out there. Someone truly gifted! He told me many times that he couldn’t go out shooting because he had no deck to ride or no money to take the bus. That’s so (sorry the term) fuckin sad, so much talent and no support, however, as soon as he gets a new deck he just wants to shred!! International companies already saw our value, the potential of our market and they started to come more and more.
I think we´ve come to a crucial point where either the national companies will step up or they will soon die.
Part 2 of the Brazil report from Allan Schmidt. Read it right now…
July 26, 2010: Ricardo Batista from Portugal
July 23, 2010: Julie Barnes
July 18, 2010: marcus smith
July 17, 2010: kage hughey
July 17, 2010: Bill
