Team riders Mazel Alegado and Brooke Benton win their divisions at CASL National Championships

What a fun weekend! CASL National Championships were this weekend, and they even had a live stream. Four of our Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team riders competed this weekend and had a blast!

Team rider Mazel Alegado is the new CASL National Champion for Girls Open Advanced Vert and Bowl.

Team Rider Brooke Benton is the new CASL National Champion for Girls Street.

Congratulations to Brooke, Mazel, Elle Warne, and Anna Shea for being invited to compete and for putting together and executing some great runs!

Make sure you grab the February 2024 Issue of THRASHER Magazine, because Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team rider, nine-year-old Anna Shea, has a quarter page photo in it. Anna is blasting a backside air in Newark, CA. The rad image was taken by Busenhart.

Congrats Anna!!

We love seeing mainstream luxury brands like Golden Goose support female skateboarders. Take a trip to China in the latest episode and meet skater Zhang Xin who shares her incredible story of discovery, transformation, and resilience.

Zhang Xin is a Chinese skateboarder. She has competed in women's park events at several World Skateboarding Championships, finishing 19th in 2018 and 25th in 2019. Zhang placed fifteenth in the preliminary round of the women's park event at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Watch to see what she is up to next!

We are starting 2024 off with a BANG and would like to introduce you to our newest team rider, Emma Sue Cloudt from Texas!

Emma Sue is eight years old and a shredder - she skates bowl, vert and street and loves to push herself to learn new tricks. Living in a small town, she mainly skates with the boys and has no fear. We are excited to get the team together to skate with her when she comes out to California this year - hopefully to compete in Exposure Skate in November.

In the meantime, make sure you follow Emma Sue on Instagram and check out her team bio page HERE.

Welcome to the team Emma Sue!

Staying in tonight? Nursing a hangover on New Years Day?

Sit back and enjoy these two superstars spill the beans on hometown fame, fangirl moments, stair records, bucket lists, wild DMs and much more.

Atita Verghese is India’s foremost female skater. She discovered skateboard culture through the country’s Holystoked crew who built India’s first DIY skatepark in Bangalore. As soon as she set foot on a board, her life changed forever- and she has never looked back.

In 2014, Atita founded Girl Skate India, an NGO which encourages young women to follow her path into the great big world of skateboarding for themselves.

Atita is an inspiration to women worldwide- but especially in India, a nation of a billion souls where skating is still in its infancy. Having learned how to mix concrete and shape transitions with the Holystoked collective, she has worked on the majority of skatepark builds throughout her home country to this day.

Along the way, skateboarding has seen her feature in many adverts, a TED talk, landed her roles in movies and even a cameo appearance in the Netflix show Skater Girl.

In a society where opportunities for girls to be free of social constraints and have fun are thin on the ground, Atita does more than just provide boards, pads or lessons- she has created a one-woman movement.

That has to be something worth checking out.

Maya Kenny competing in Rome at the Park World Championships - Photo Lauren Brooke

This weekend skateboarders involved in competing at Olympic Park Qualifiers got a bit of a rude awakening. It was quietly announced that World Skate had changed the Olympic Park Qualifiers from the beginning of January to almost the end of February and the location was changed from Sharjah to Dubai.

Image via World Skate

You might be thinking “we are in November, so that’s not too bad…” but a lot of athletes had already purchased their flights for the qualifier, lined up their hotels or airbnb’s and arranged their schedules accordingly.

And this does not even include, or address, the park skaters that already flew in and are currently in Sharjah practicing at the park where the event was supposed to be held.

Sharjah is fairly close to Dubai (about a 20 to 30 minute drive by car) so you may also be thinking “they can just go practice at the other park!”. The issue is what park? The parks in Dubai are not set up for this style of Park Qualifier. Kite Beach Skatepark (also known as X Dubai) is the largest and nicest of the bunch. it has a bowl, a pool, rails, ledges, quarter pipes, and hubbas, but it is not built like a “park” that is used in Olympic qualifiers.

So, the question people have is; Is a new park being built to be ready in time to the next qualifier? Most likely. Is this a way to keep some skaters from having extra practice time prior to comps? Maybe. The X Games does it. Vans Park Series used to do it as well, so it is not unheard of. And yes, when the Olympics roll around it will be at a park specifically built for the Olympic venue and practice will be regulated so everyone has a fair shot.

Check out California Skateparks instagram to see if you see anything soon about them building a park in Dubai - that may be the most information we get at this early date. They are known to rally and work fast so maybe this is wha tis happening - too soon to tell though.

But back to this February Park Qualifier.

In case you didn’t know, another interesting thing about Park Qualifiers - they do not run on a normal calendar year schedule - such as, January to December for the “season”. We just had the World Championships in October in Rome so most people assume that this would be the end of the “season”. NO. We have one more comp left in the “season” and that will now be Dubai. So, all skaters that have been competing so far, are invited.

Image via World Skate

Then in May there is a qualifier in Shanghai and then another in Budapest in June - these two are only for the top 44 skaters and they lead up to who eventually goes to the Paris Olympics in July.

WHEW! We know it’s confusing, but we hope we have helped shed some light on some of the craziness!

Watch Rayssa Leal, Chloe Covell, Momiji Nishiya, Paige Heyn, Roos Zwetsloot and Pamela Rosa battle it out for the W in Sydney! Next stop - SLS Super Crown World Championship going down in São Paulo on Dec. 2-3rd!

Side Note: Women in street are keeping busy traveling around the world - between SLS stops and Olympic qualifiers they traveling are competing constantly, and have the ability to make money at each comp. This is something we need in park skateboarding as well. Where is the equivalent SLS series for park? We had that with Vans Park Series. Do we think anyone else will step up and we will have that kind of tour again? Fingers crossed!

Hedda Hjertberg

Photos by @lauren_brooke_photography - if using on social please credit!

We are so lucky to have photos of the vert comp from the talented Lauren Brooke Photography to share with you! Scroll down and soak up all the vibes from this amazing day!

Enjoy!

Grace Marhoefer

Joey Yarbrough

Jordyn Barratt

Juno Matsuoka

Kihana Ogawa

Mazel Paris

Tuli Lam

Kihana Ogawa being celebrated after throwing down a backside tailslide shove it to win “Best Trick”

Anna Shea

Photos @ianloganphoto x @girlisnota4letterword - please credit if using on social - Thanks!

We just have to keep sharing as the photos and vibe from Exposure Skate was amazing!

Mazel Paris

Mayzie Feher

Elle Warne

Lulu Johnson

Mei Nakano

Brooke Benton

Kate Kuno

Women’s Intermediate Bowl - 1st, Mayzie Feher, 2nd Mei Nakano, 3rd Anna Shea

Women’s Advanced Bowl - 1st Mazel Paris, 2nd Kate Kuno, 3rd Joey Yarbrough

Women’s Bowl 30+ - 1st. Deise Rivero, 2nd Shelby Reed, 3rd Jessie Frietze-Armenta

Women’s Pro Bowl - 1st Lilly Erickson, 2nd Jordyn Barratt, 3rd Bryce Wettstein

Mayzie Feher

PHOTOS @ianloganphoto x @girlisnota4letterword - please credit both if using on social - thanks!

Exposure Skate happened at Poods Park in Encinitas this past weekend and if you weren’t there you missed a GREAT event! Non-traditional skaters of all ages skated hard and had a great time with friends. They cheered for each other, pushed their own limits and showed just how fast the newest generation of skateboarders are progressing!

Thanks to Amelia Brodka and Lesli Cohen as well as ll the volunteers that make this huge event happen year after year!

Scroll on for more visual goodness!

Anna Shea

Brooke Benton

Lulu Johnson

Nico Suganami

Elle Warne

Mazel Paris

Kate Kuno

Tilda

Joey Yarbrough

Samantha Tieg

Kihana Ogawa

Jordyn Barratt

Ruby Lilley

Lilly Erickson

Ameia Brodka and Exposure Volunteers

Skate mags used to run the world, but now social media means every skater can start their own brand. In the year 2023, what does it mean to be a pro skater? Does that title mean anything anymore? Red Bulls Pushing Forward (tries to) break it down in this episode. Great advice and info for everyone involved in skateboarding

Nora Vasconcellos has paved the way for women In skate to do more than just the contest circuit. Nora has created a path where women, like the male skaters before them, can shoot video parts, have lucrative brand deals and skate for the fun of it. The days of thinking the Olympics are the only big dream for female skaters is being changed - thanks to Nora.

Skateboarder and YETI athlete Nora Vasconcellos joins The Lineup. She talks about her barrier-breaking career, from becoming the first woman signed to the Adidas Skate Team and putting out her film “Nora” to designing her signature shoe and landing the cover of Thrasher Magazine. She discusses her love of surfing and the crossovers between it and skateboarding, her favorite surfers today, and being inspired by Stephanie Gilmore and Carissa Moore as a kid. Nora also touches on gender equality in sports, advice to girl groms, skateboarding’s rawness and playfulness, the toughest trick she learned, and working with YETI.

Check out Nora Vasconcellos in this YETI - POWER PINK video. It’s cool to see Nora do her art and watch her skate everything from parks, and ditches to a ramp in the woods.

Image by @ChristinekNg

The Newport Beach Film Festival Presents the World Premiere of THIS IS BRIGHTON

 A coming-of-age sports documentary about Brighton Zeuner, one of the best female contest skateboarders of her generation

Brighton Zeuner / Premiere of THIS IS BRIGHTON ~ Photo Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word

We caught the World Premiere of THIS IS BRIGHTON on Saturday at The Newport Film Festival and we have to say, you need to see this documentary. We were around during the six-year time frame that the doc was being filmed so we thought going in we knew a lot, but there was so much else happening privately and this film sheds light on a lot of that. Being a pro skateboarder at a young age and having so much pressure on you as you head into the Olympics takes it toll. Brighton’s documentary is full of positive moments, but also a serves as cautionary tale for those on the outside looking in, as skateboarding heads to its second Olympics.

Featuring:
✨Brighton Zeuner @brightonzeuner
✨Bryce Wettstein @brycewettstein
✨Poppy Starr Olsen @poppystarr
✨Jack Zeuner @jacksonzeuner
✨Chris Gregson @tweestopher

THIS IS BRIGHTON is a coming-of-age sports 93-minute documentary about Brighton Zeuner, one of her generation's best female contest skateboarders. As skateboarding becomes an Olympic sport, this character-driven film reveals the anxiety and pressures of competition, the effects of social media, and how a global pandemic upended the promise of a young skater destined to be the best. Nearly six years in the making, by an all-female film team, the documentary features Newport local teen Brighton Zeuner as she figures out who she is and what skateboarding means to her. On Saturday, October 14, THIS IS BRIGHTON will make its world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

"For six years, this amazing team of women have been documenting the skateboarding journey of my youth," said Zeuner. "I am so excited this film will be presented in my hometown at the Newport Film Festival in Newport Beach. Hope to see you there!"

When/ Where:  Wed, Oct 18th, 5:30 PM @ Big Newport 4

Tickets: Purchase tickets for Wednesday’s Show HERE

About the Filmmakers

Director, Beth Aala

Beth Aala is an award-winning Filipina-American documentary filmmaker with her hand in all aspects of production. In addition to directing and producing, she shoots and edits. She has won three Emmy awards and a Peabody Award for her documentary work at HBO. Beth recently directed and produced the feature documentary Made in Boise. The film premiered at AFI Docs in June 2019 and was the season opener for PBS's 2019-2020 award-winning Independent Lens series. It was honored as a 2020 News and Documentary nominee. Other film credits include Rancher Farmer, Fisherman, which she co-directed and produced and premiered at Sundance in 2017, and Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (A&E IndieFilms), which she directed and produced with comedian Mike Myers and Academy award-winning producer Caroline Waterlow. Supermensch is an intimate and entertaining portrait of talent manager Shep Gordon, the most famous man you've ever heard of. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013 and was nominated for the 2015 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, and won the 2014 Hollywood Film Award for Best Documentary. Beth has been supported by the International Documentary Association, Chicken & Egg, and ITVS and is an honored recipient of the NYSCA Artist Grant, a proud member of ADOC, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Filipinx Filmmakers, and is a Wyncote Fellow. Her work has been featured on HBO, PBS, A&E, Discovery, and MTV.

Producer, Caroline Waterlow

Caroline Waterlow is an award-winning documentary film producer based in New York City. Waterlow produced O.J.: Made in America, an ESPN Films documentary directed by Ezra Edelman and winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards. Most recently, she produced QUALIFIED, an ESPN Films 30 for 30 documentaries about race car driver Janet Guthrie, the first woman to qualify for the Indy 500. Feature documentaries include Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, directed by Beth Aala and Mike Myers, which premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and the Academy Award-nominated documentary Cutie and the Boxer, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. In 2013, she was the senior producer of content for MAKERS.com. From 2006-2012 & she contributed to multiple award-winning HBO documentaries, including Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush and TEDDY: In His Own Words.-30-

Nike asked girls and all-star athletes like Jordan Chiles, Rayssa Leal, and Bebe Vio how they tackled obstacles that made them want to quit sport. Listen in as they share stories, inspire one another, and tell each other, “You Got This.”

We love seeing our team riders Quinne Daniels and Briel Weingartner featured in these NIKE spots along with South Bay surfer/skater Teagan Meza and pro skaters Rayssa Leal, Leticia Bufoni as well as Venice local, skater/influencer Brooklinn Khoury.

Watch this next video to hear what Quinne has to say aboutow skateboarding has helped her with fitting in - powerful stuff!

Today’s World Championships from Rome did not disappoint! All eight women in the final were on fire, but at the end of the day, one American stood on the podium along with two Japanese skaters. At just seventeen years old, Minna Stess, from Petaluma, California, pulled off what no other American female park skater has done - she made the podium at Olympic Qualifiers. Minna’s third-place finish now makes her the highest-ranked American woman in park skateboarding, which is a considerable feat!

There was a lot of stiff competition from the Japanese skaters. Cocona Hiraki had three flawless runs, and Hinano Kusaki was able to bump Minna from second to third at one point, but no one else in the field could crack the 90s scoring-wise that these three had on lock. They were in a league of their own, and the crowd loved it! The only other American to make it to the finals was Ruby Lilley, who placed seventh with a score of 84.40.

It was an exciting event, and we hope you watch the replay and see how much women’s skateboarding has evolved in the past few years - simply amazing!

Congrats to all the women who competed today!

Results from WST Rome Park World Championships 2023 Women's Final

1. Hiraki Cocona (JPN) 94.54

2. Kusaki Hinano (JPN) 93.20

3. Minna Stess (USA) 90.80

4. Raicca Ventura (BRA) 87.59

5. Naia Laso (ESP) 86.25

6. Lilly Stoephasius (GER) 84.79

7. Ruby Lilley (USA) 84.40

8. Yosozumi Sakura (JPN) 83.53

It was a nail biting semi-final, but when the final run was tallied, these eight women made it to the World Championship’s final! From ages fourteen to twenty-one and hailing from five different countries this is truly one of the best finalist groups we have seen!

Two Americans out of the five made it to the finals, Minna Stess and Ruby Lilley - big congrats to these ladies!

Tune in on SUNDAY to watch the FINALS - LIVE!

8:15 AM PT / 11:15 AM ET

You can catch the action on WorldSkate.TV or Olympics.com

Today’s quarter-finals had 32 women competing for one of sixteen spots in the semi-finals. Tomorrow a total of eight skaters will move on to compete in the finals on Sunday for those three coveted podium places.

This is not only the World Championships but this Olympic Qualifier means more points for skaters as we head into the Paris Olympics - so there is a lot at stake!

These are the skaters that made it into Saturday’s semi-finals:

Women's SEMI-FINALISTS

1. Kokona Hiraki (JPN)

2. Raicca Ventura (BRA)

3. Hinano Kusaki (JPN)

4. Dora Varella (BRA)

5. Lillian Erickson (USA)

6. Sakura Yosozumi (JPN)

7. Ruby Lilley (USA)

8. Minna Stess (USA)

9. Naia Laso (ESP)

10. Isadora Pacheco (BRA)

11. Bryce Wettstein (USA)

12. Arisa Trew (AUS)

13. Ruby Trew (AUS)

14. Hyunju Cho (KOR)

15. Lilly Stoephasius (GER)

16. Grace Marhoefer (USA)

With five USA women in the semi-finals along with skaters from Brazil, Australia, Spain, Germany and Korea in the mix, it doesn’t feel as if Japan is fully dominating as it has in past years. This group of women should make for a great semi-final!

WATCH THE SEMI-FINALS LIVE:

SATURDAY:

6:30 AM PT / 9:30 ET

Livestream coverage of WST Rome Park 2023 World Championships will be available to watch worldwide on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com