photos by Luke Kelly & Stephen Jones
Happening this year on October 8th, 9th and 10th, Arab Am 2009 was great… Three whole days of ripping around an indoor course built by Bradley Kirr and Tamer Ramadan. The event was part of the Adrenaline Sports Live, which hosted a weekend of all kinds of ‘extreme’ sports action from skateboarding to wake-boarding and even snowboarding..! (Photos of which we only wish we could share.) Fortunately the skatepark had the largest space out of any other event outside of the expensive cars on display. So we had a bunch of buttery flatground to skate instead of just the ramps.
A.S.L. takes place every year and it’s sort of like the ASR (action sports retailers) tradeshow which goes on in California every year with all the skate companies. In Abu Dhabi, there are numerous booths set up by all kinds of random companies and distributors. And not all of it revolves around ‘action sports’, much less skateboarding… Beside the skate park there were sailboats on display and also a Thailand tourism company who were giving away these flags that a bunch of kids tied around their necks as capes. (see Jan’s photo below, he opted for the skirt steez)
Sucks to be writing about an event that was already a month ago! Anyway for all you out there, this competition is open to anyone in the Middle East…
Results
Seniors:
1st: Evan Collisson, Dubai
2nd: Alex Medvedev, Dubai
3rd: Kyle Kenny, Abu Dhabi
Juniors:
1st: Mark Gavigan, Dubai
2nd: Omar Alabbar, Dubai
3rd: Lawrence Jokun, Dubai
Big up’s to all the winners!!! But uhhh, we’re just wondering.. “Shu!? Where’s all the Arab skaters in this competition if its called ‘Arab Am’!?”
Yalla, so if you can make it to Abu Dhabi next year, make sure you sign up for the Arab AM 10′ and represent!
