As promised, we would like to share the energy of Slovenian summertime with a summary of the street skateboarding contest which took place as part of the European Youth Olympic Festival in Maribor last week!

Although the EYOF is a well-established event with a 30-year history, this year was the first time skateboarding has been included in the schedule and Maribor was an ideal location to do so.

Max Berguin/ FRA

The small city’s one thousand square-metre skatepark only opened in 2019, and prior to this summer’s EYOF event had already hosted an international contest previously so the municipality clearly has ambitions of making Maribor an international draw for skateboarding.

Lina Sevcnikar/ SLO

Despite much of Europe struggling under the punishment of a continental heatwave, the weather conditions in Maribor were pretty much perfect and the skating continued right into the final long evening before scores were tallied and medals awarded.

Madu Teixeira/ POR

With skaters aged between 14 and 18 years old eligible to compete, 20 countries sent their next gen rippers for what will surely prove to be a formative experience for everyone who entered.

Sara Larrañaga / ESP

To have the opportunity to jump on a skate trip to a city and indeed a country you might otherwise never get the chance to see is often the lightbulb moment for skateboarders who grasp the realisation that an activity based around movement can literally take you places.

Maja Spatscheck/ NOR

With a professional judging panel in the form of Pat Duffy, Susan Reekers and Danny Wainwright ranking the entrants and the contest being run along Olympic format, it meant that all the finalists got a sense of how a modern skate contest operates- some, for the first time.

Judges

That experience will in itself be invaluable in years to come both in terms of nerve-settling and understanding the strategic nuances of competition.

Shani Paz/ ISR

With regards to podium positions, France and Poland both garnered a gold and bronze each, while Israel came away with a pair of silver medals- but the big winner here clearly is the activity of skateboarding itself, which not only established itself within the EYOF calendar but which also brought a lot of new energies of its own to summertime in Slovenia.

Coaches

Maximum congratulations- and also a thank you- to all involved!

European Youth Olympic Festival 2023 Maribor Skateboarding Results

Men’s

1. Max Berguin/ FRA

2. Yakov Terrel/ ISR

3. Jean Semaan/ POL

Women’s

1. Weronika Choromanska/ POL

2. Shani Paz/ ISR

3. Cerise Michaud/ FRA

All photography courtesy of EYOF (Sasha Žerdin/ Nina Radenkovic/ Drago Embersic)