Slam Skateboarding 229 Autumn 2021

This edition of Slam is spearheaded by skateboarders with a burning drive to get shit done, no matter what challenges are thrown at them. Rather than sitting dolefully and waiting for the pandemic to pass, Australian skaters are producing video parts, shooting feature interviews and knocking up incredible DIYs. We rinsed every photo our new Skater of the Year had last year in a 16-page interview, but Ben Lawrie knuckled down over a few weeks – straight after he was surprised with his award – and managed to shoot another 10-page spread. Drawn inextricably to Melbourne city, our new SOTY even stepped out of his comfort zone and jumped on a plane to Sydney to snap a few shots. Jake Hayes was crowned Slam SOTY back in 2016 and he has been…

Canadian street skater Una Farrar arrived in Australia in December 2020, spent Chrissy in quarantine, and then was finally reunited with her girlfriend Poppy Olsen after 10 and a half long months apart. Now Una has been unleashed on the Sydney streets with her VX, soaking up the Southern Hemisphere sunshine. We caught up for a chat about COVID, gender equity, the Olympics and earning a crust. Vancouver Island I’m from Victoria, on Vancouver Island [in Canada]. It was a really good place to grow up. We have beautiful nature, so I was really fortunate as a kid to do lots of outdoor things. The skate community has always been there, but it’s definitely grown a lot in the past few years. I had my own little grom friend-group and all my…

Some injuries are painful, some are scary, others are just downright annoying. After slipping out on a tailslide recently, I copped one from the latter category: my shin scraped down the edge of the ledge, splitting open like one of those rubber Spitfire coin pouches. A sock full of blood and a handful of stitches later, and I’m now sitting around, waiting for the gash to heal enough so I can skate again. The problem with this kind of injury is that it’s in one of those spots that is likely to be hit again, and again, and again. Any minor shinner now has the potential to rip that sucker open, send me back to the stitcher, and relegate my arse to the couch while I wait for it to heal…

Karmen Lee is a 38-year-old skateboarder who has been a staple of the Western Australian skate scene since the ’90s. These days, she works with Skateboarding WA, GMTA and has also formed her own skate company, Panda. Karmen has been through all sorts of ups and downs, battling injury and addiction, and helping plenty of other skateboarders along the way. WA in the ’90s When I was a grom skating in the ’90s, there were no other girls around, no mobile phones, no social media, no skate lessons and no skateparks, aside from a couple of indoor ones that weren’t close to public transport. There was a lot of running from security and police – my fake name was Elissa Steamer if we got caught. Weekends consisted of meeting up at Momentum…

Lincoln Child skates for Fast Times and also works at one of their stores in Melbourne, so when his boss and TM, Anthony Mapstone, hit him up to film an Instagram clip for the shop, he didn’t suspect a thing. That day he met up with Mappy, along with his friends Pat Clarke and Brendon Tran. “That seemed pretty normal to me,” says Ben, “We skated a park and filmed a few things.” Ben continues, “Then Mappy said he would drive to the city and shout us a meal. After we parked the car, he said there were heaps of people at Lincoln [Square] and we should go and say what’s up. When we were rocking up, I saw Geoff [Campbell] filming me and Moki [Tomoki Peters] taking photos and that’s…

While Adelaide Norris was shooting her New Gen for the Spring Edition of 2020, she copped a board to the face while attempting a slappy noseslide on an out-ledge. “I think I blacked out a bit. My first thought was, damn, blood,” Adelaide said in her interview. “Zoolz [George Kousoulis] drove us to the hospital, and they stitched me up while I was still awake, which was insane. I would not recommend.” That was just one challenge during a very challenging year all round, especially for those who call Melbourne home. With the pandemic causing multiple extended lockdowns, one-hour daily limits on exercise (which technically included skateboarding) and five-kilometre travel restrictions, it certainly didn’t make for an easy environment to go out and get tricks. But just like with those facial…