Bangkok--27 Apr--TQPR
In the beginning, skateboarding was simple. You balanced one foot on the board and pushed with the other. Alternatively you could start at the top of a slope and ride down it. Your mission was to stay on the board and avoid a collision. Sounds easy enough.
Suffice to say, times have changed.
Visit any skate park these days and you'll see kids pull off stunts that appear to defy the laws of physics. Mid-air maneuvers. Nose-slides and back-slides. Ollies, grabs and grinds. Lip tricks. Pole-jams. Flips. The list goes on.
But the mother of all stunts, the holy grail of all skateboarding tricks, is the much-coveted but highly elusive 1080.
In the last few years, a crowded list of prominent skateboarders have tried and failed to land the 3-rotation 1080 move. Extreme sports superstar Shaun White came close at the 2007 X-Games, and 14-year old Mitchie Bruscoe attempted it last August. Many had started to believe that the move was impossible to execute.
Enter, 12-year old school-boy Tom Schaar.
Just last month, the Malibu native realised every skateboarders dream when he landed the first ever 1080 in skateboarding. He executed the trick after only 5 attempts, and later said, “It was easier than I thought”. His first-ever 1080 was captured on camera and has since gone viral. But he went back and nailed the same trick again the following day on his 6th try.
This week the 6th-grade skateboarding prodigy will be in Shanghai to participate in the 14th edition of the Asian X-Games where he hopes to make history again, as being the first to land a 1080 in competition.
But Schaar is not the only competitor generating buzz ahead of Asian X. Pierre-Luc Gagnon is a 7-time X-Games gold medalist and one of the most dominant skateboarders of the last decade. The 30 year old Canadian is chasing his third Mini MegaRamp title in three years at the Asian X-Games. But the competition is strong and a number of rivals are eager to take the gold medal off him. One of them is Brazilian Bob Burnquist, who lost out on gold in Shanghai last year by a measly 1 point. Revenge is on his mind.
Fans in Shanghai will also be served a treat when Kevin Robinson makes his competitive return following a shoulder injury which required 8 surgeries and 22 months of rehabilitation. But the 40-year old from Rhode Island, USA, prides himself on always pushing the limit, and he's back to test those once again at the Asian X-Games.
Race car driver Mario Andretti once said, “If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.” That is the same philosophy many of the X-Games participants will bring with them to Shanghai. It's about going bigger, faster and breaking through barriers. It's about belief and taking it beyond the realms of possibility.
Colette Wong is a SportsCenter presenter on ESPN every weekday at 7.30pm. Catch the KIA X Games Asia on ESPN from 29 April — 1 May