Vans Girls Combi & Its $65,000 Prize Purse Pushed Skating To New Levels.

Poppy Starr Olsen

Brighton Zeuner

Nicole Hause

Jordyn Barratt

Minna Stess

Lea Taylor

Sakura Yosozumi

Bryce Wettstein

Lizzie Armanto

Kihana Ogawa

Leticia Goncalves

Bia Sodre

Grace Marhoefer

Kat Folsom

Spencer Breaux

Arianna Carmona

Allysha Le

Lizzie, Brighton, Jordyn, Nicole, Steve Caballero & Poppy

Poppy giving Nicole a well deserved hug and congrats!

Photos Ian Logan - if you choose to share/post - please credit @ianloganphoto  & @girlisnota4letterword  - Thank you!

The Vans Girls Combi is always a highlight of the year in women's skateboarding, but this year it was even more special. The night before the contest, Vans threw the first in a series of events, to celebrate and encourage girls to skateboard - complete with a band, photo gallery show, panel about skateboarding, create your own grip tape, artwork, clinics, checkerboard nails by Minx Nails and more.

The contest itself was historic - the prize purse was $65,000 - making it EQUAL to the men's combi prize purse. Female EQUALITY!  Something women and girls in skateboarding have been fighting for, and now see as reality - thanks to Vans.

Girls came from all over to compete - Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan and from all over the USA. The under 14 division and over 15 divisions were packed with amazing skaters! (More on that and photos later)

From the get go this contest just felt different, the girls stepped it up and the tricks they were pulling were amazing, they cheered each other on and had fun while pushing the level of female skateboarding forward.

We need to mention that we loved Brighton Zeuner's outfit for qualifiers and finals - she was dressed in yellow and black as the lead character from the movie Kill Bill. Visually it was great and she definitely was killing it!

Eleven year old Minna Stess took hard slam to her hip and had to be looked at in the medical tent just prior to competing in the Pro Qualifiers - but she powered through and threw it down to make the finals. So cool to see the younger girls competing at such a high level.

When it was announced that Nicole Hause was the winner of the pro division, every single girl was on her feet cheering for her and stoked that she won. There was no question that last night was her night.

Congrats to all the girls who competed and stay tuned for photos from the AM divisions soon!


FINALS  RESULTS

1. Nicole Hause  $28,000
2. Jordyn Barratt   $14,000
3. Brighton Zeuner  $7,000
4. Lizzie Armanto  $3,500
5. Poppy Starr Olsen  $3,000
6. Sakura Yosozumi  $2,500
7. Arianna Carmona  $2,000
8. Grace Marhoefer  $1,800
9. Minna Stess   $1,700
10. Lea Taylor  $1,500


Huge thanks to Vans, World Cup Skateboarding, the judges and staff for making this one of the best contests ever!