The Contest Thread

Never seen this insta account before.

Now quite fancying a root beer for some reason.

At last. Acceptance that I am the funny one in this relationship.

I’ll take the win.

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Neither is from Britain…

Which I suppose doesn’t really matter but it is a bit sad that all our hopes are pinned on non-Brits. Come on Hinson, bring it home!

Edit: Calvert was born in Liverpool! All is forgiven!

At least Tommy lived in Liverpool for a few years. Andy Mac representing Team GB is a bit of a stretch.

Current World Rankings for anyone that cares…

Joe Hinson - 37th
Alex Decunha - 74th
Sky Brown - 3rd
Lola Tambling - 15th
Lilly Strachan - 35th
George O’Neill - 41st
Tay Cunningham - 66th
Tommy Calvert - 33rd
Andy MacDonald - 46th
Jesse Thomas - 63rd
Sam Beckett - 58th

There’s one more event in Dubai in Feb and then the top 44 go through to a 2nd round prior to Olympics. Within that 44 though there can only be max of 6 from one nation so expect to start stripping out a few Japaneses, Brazilians and Americans that are over quota. Means there’s a lot of Brits in good positions atm. After 2nd round (made up of two events) top 22 go to Paris Olympics.

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Andy Mac the yellow sticker budget Tony Hawk

I don’t keep up with comp stuff but remember seeing a very young and small Lola Tambling ripping at Housecomp a few years back. Sick to see she’s progressed to this level!

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Yeah I filmed her rock n rolling the big quarter back in maybe 2017 and she was tiny. Crazy progression

Yeah it’s worth noting there are 5 British teenagers all ranked in top 50 with Tay, a sixth not being far off after only competing in two events. Of those 6, you’ve got born and bred Saltash, Woolacombe, Chinor and Westgate on Sea!

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Tay is on a mission too so :crossed_fingers:t2::crossed_fingers:t2:
Weirdly, his dad shot my boss’s wedding photos.
“Oh you’re into skateboarding? I know a skater but I doubt you’ll know him”

“You reckon?”
Lol

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A daft question - maybe not that daft - one for the general forum members but probably more for @anonymity and @LA as they know what’s going on out there.

When kids ‘get good’ really young are they figuring it out for themselves or are they ‘trained’ and/or coached so to speak? Obviously natural talent is needed regardless. I’m just a bit dumbfounded/shocked/in awe when I see little ones tearing parks apart like Skateboarding is easy.

Or is Skateboarding really easy and I’ve been fooled into thinking it is hard for the best part of 40 years :rofl:

Relativity. What was considered ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ has shifted. We walked so all these kids could run by taking 5 years to learn to 360 flip.

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Haha, yeah, you’ve reminded me of a similar conversation a friend and myself had a few years back at pier head about how many of the young ‘kids’ were good and at the time I was saying that all the ‘basics’ and the techniques are so well known now compared to way back when and he added about the bar being raised and people stepping up (paraphrasing as it was nearly 4 years ago). Just progression.

Either way, it’s all amazing. I’m just regularly shocked - in a good way.

I’m not really the right person to answer this but it’s clear that learning curves and general ability levels are way, way higher.
It has lots to do with parks provision, visibility of other kids ripping etc

Think a lot depends on very supportive parents. Tambling and Calvert are both home schooled so that they can focus more on skating.

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Not having to learn tricks from magazine sequences and having more than 10 skaters in the whole county makes progressing much faster than when we were all fields.

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Took me about 33 :upside_down_face:

And I guess having done this a particular talent was spotted prior to home schooling unless the skating came after home schooling began.

Its absolutely mental really. But yeah, the facilities available now are so far beyond what was available when we were kids.

Anyhow, just thinking out aloud really. I’d be oblivious to the real young ones if Instagram wasn’t sticking videos of kids the size of foetus’ doing flip-in flip-out shit on curbs into my eyes every now and again.
:slight_smile:

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Learnt heelflips thanks to Paul Shier and his ‘how to’ sequence in RAD :smile:

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Sometimes I wonder what skating would be like if GBH wasn’t taken down in the way it was and had the monopoly they were so close to having.

Sick to see Lola T at 15, surely she’ll make it.