European Skateboard Championships 2007 Review

Just a few days before the contest, Basel became the stage for a less pleasant event: A big thunderstorm. Roads within Switzerland were closed, the river went over the banks and flooded parts of the center and rain was pouring like out of buckets. In the hot phase of setting up the contest chances were high that the whole thing would have been rained out and faces got more and more worried. But despite all that the organization team stayed positive and gave their best and bingo: the rain stopped and the first rays of sunshine paved the way for people from all over Europe, even Israel, to come together and celebrate skateboarding.

2007 set a new standard with a record number of over 480 skateboarders competing in the contest, 200 media representatives and 6000 spectators on the day of the finals. The elite of european skateboarding showcased finest skateboarding in all it’s forms, from kickflip footplants over the barrier over tech skills to plain hammers on the rail. Austrias Philipp Schuster pulled two amazing runs full of fluent finesse and made it for Austria again, „1st place Street“. Ianire Elorriaga was ripping and took the title „1st place street girls“ home to the basque country. Mathias Ringström flew all the way from the US and won „1st place Vert“ with his swedish passport. The bowl was surely one of the highlights of the weekend: a brandnew double kidney shaped full bowl, in the usual solid quality of IOU’s Andreas Schuetzenberger. Germany’s Jürgen Horrwarth got another trophy for his collection, „1st place Bowl“. For the second time the thursday was fully dedicated to the kids. 80 youngsters competed in the 3 age groups of the „Junior Championships“. Winners are Eyal Maman from Switzerland (1-13), Nassim Guammaz from the Netherlands (13-14) and his compatriot Woody Hoogendyk (15-16).

Gallery #7378

The „black cross bowl“, Pontus Alv’s sculpture from last year at the NT Areal, became the hot spot once the sun got down. Besides Pontus being there himself enjoying the new corner that the locals in Basel added, a couple of hundred other people found their way to the abandoned railway yard and partied in the many trailer style bars, when they were not watching Christoph Merkt, the Alv, Tobias Albert, Oli Buergin (just to name a few) killing it in the bowl.

A giant thank you goes out to the 100 volunteers, the sponsors, the media, the skaters, the Basel locals, the DJs, the spectators, the city of Basel and everyone else who made this 7th edition possible, it’s been wonderful.