BOWLZILLA Gold Coast dodged all the weather and managed a perfect blue sky day and amazing competition for the second year running.
BOWLZILLA Gold Coast built upon last year’s successes to give Australian skating its own fun skater owned and run event. It was an awesome week to celebrate all that makes skateboarding great with art, music and the competition.
The weather looked terrible all week with some even predicting catastrophic conditions for the Saturday. Thanks to some good connections (thanks Sarah) the sky turned blue and the competition ran with Saturday remaining mainly hot and sunny. Given only half the competition could be held in Wellington the week before it was decided on the day to amend the schedule and push through as quickly as possible to ensure all skaters got their fair share.
New BOWLZILLA Gold Coast champions were chosen across 3 of 4 divisions. As it is a park / bowl competition the scoring is based around use of the whole park in each run with the best run counting. The riders that embraced this approach best by using the whole bowl in their best run ended up on the podium.
The women’s skateboarding scene is going from strength to strength at the moment and BOWLZILLA wants to do everything it can to support and encourage this. For the first time in an Australian major skateboard competition, a female judge was on the panel for the whole event. Shari Lawson did an amazing job along with her fellow panellists Bevin Newton and Brodie Jarret. Shari wasn’t chosen because of a quota but because it is long overdue and she deserved the job. This will be a permanent position at BOWLZILLA Gold Coast from here on.
The week’s festivities kicked off with Beach Burrito Company hosting the opening party on Thursday night at Coolangatta, then on Friday night Yeah Girl did the Gold Coast premiere of the international all women’s skateboard film “Quit Your Day Job” which opened to thunderous applause and they were kept company on the night by Fiik Skateboards and their film premiere of “Steady Lurking” showcasing the best of local talent and humour at Warehouse No.5. The competition ran Saturday at Elanora skatepark and on Saturday night it all wrapped up with Dive In at Beach Burrito Company in Coolangatta. Another great week to finish off the summer season on the Gold Coast. 2018 BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is going to be amazing, given what has been done so far.
The placings for BOWLZILLA Gold Coast 2017 are;
WOMEN – prize money donated by Yeah Girl, prizes donated by Dickies, Goliath, Protec
1st Taniah Meyers $250
2nd Aimee Massie $150
3rd Izy Mutu $100
4th Tenille Licari
5th Haylie Powell
6th Indiana Barnard
7th Tora Waldren
16 & UNDER – prizes donated by Dickies, Goliath, Protec
1st Loius Newman
2nd Bryce McKean
3rd Sam Windhorst
4th Ash Wilcomes
5th Karlin O'Halloran
6th Riley McComb
7th Elijah Devlin
8th Oscar Southerden
9th Nixen Osborne
10th Bailey Ryan
11th Jack Lewis
12th Kayden Bate
13th Ezekiel Joel Munro
14th Koby Roberts
15th Logan Kennedy
16th Cooper Graham
MASTERS
1st Nick Hepenstall $500
2nd Trevor Ward $250
3rd Chris Enwright $100
4th Iain Watt $90
5th Robert Brasher $80
6th Justin Leslight $70
7th Leigh McKenzie $60
8th Simon Bate $50
9th Nic Couscouris $0
OPEN
1st Jesse Noonan 264 $1000
2nd Matt Kitai 263 $750
3rd Willy Lara 254 $500
4th George Richards 245 $400
5th John Boyd 232 $300
6th Sam Renwick 193 $200
7th Kobe Graf 188 $100
8th Quaid Munson 0 $50
9th Nathan Trew
10th Cody Wilson
11th Ethan Mannix
12th Steve McIver
13th Nick Southerden
14th Christian McEwen
15th Izak Reeves
16th Jordan Burling
17th Michael Mitchell
18th John Dickinson
BOWLZILLA Gold Coast has long term plans to grow every year to increase the fun potential for Australian skating by using a competition as the excuse to gather the widest range of generations of skaters for good times and great skating. BOWLZILLA Gold Coast invites all the skaters to come and be part and have a say in how they want their fun.
City of Gold Coast Councillor Daphne McDonald proudly supported the BOWLZILLA Gold Coast events for a second year running. She was instrumental in the funding of the skatepark, getting the lights in, building out the site to better enable events to happen and being a fantastic advocate for skateboarding in general. Everyone at the event is grateful for her ongoing support.
“When you mix together a great local scene with a deep history, awesome skateparks, the most supportive council in Australia for skating, a community that encourages board sports because they believe in the benefits of it for the community as a whole rather than as a revenue stream, incredibly talented and friendly local skaters and sponsors that are involved because it is their community, then you get great things happening. We’re so fortunate to be able to be part of all of this. We will work hard every year to make BOWLZILLA Gold Coast the best it can be for all of them to show our appreciation.” Chad Ford – Director of BOWLZILLA and Miryoku Agency LLC.
BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is working to develop gatherings that use championship competitions to get everyone together to share and skate and grow and enjoy skating. With the TV show being distributed by IMG to a potential single view audience of over 640,000,000 viewers it is a great way for the world to see how talented our friends are and why they are worth supporting with great events, skateparks and sponsorship. BOWLZILLA Gold Coast is growing each year with increased benefit for the locals and all divisions will expand with the world’s top talent while encouraging and benefiting Australia’s best.
CR McDonald said; “We have worked hard to support the growth of the exciting and healthy activity of skateboarding on the Gold Coast and it was fantastic that the Pines Skate bowl at Elanora, the first open full pipe in Australia, was chosen to hold BOWLZILLA Gold Coast event. There are increasing opportunities for skateboarding and the Gold Coast is poised to be the hub of it all, especially with skateboarding now recognised as an official Olympic Games sport for Tokyo 2020”.
BOWLZILLA Gold Coast would not be possible without the incredible support of its sponsors and supporters, a huge thank you to; Gold Coast City Council, Beach Burrito Company, Protec, Goliath Distribution, Fiik Skateboards, Gold Coast Skateboard Coaching, Yeah Girl, ISU, Darkside, Dickies, ASF, Redhead Or Dead Events and Miryoku Agency.
