Oi STU Open: the biggest skateboarding and urban culture event takes place from November 11th to 17th at Praça Duó in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Skateboarders such as Pamela Rosa, Letícia Bufoni, Nyjah Huston, Pedro Barros, Sky Brown and Heimana Reynolds are expected in the Street and Park competitions in Barra da Tijuca. The contests are part of a real urban festival with music shows, art exhibits, fashion, and gastronomy.
The best skaters in the world will be together at Praça Duó from November 11th for Oi STU Open, the biggest skateboarding and urban culture event in Latin America. Street and Park riders will be competing until November 17th searching for important points for the Olympic qualification. Besides lots of skating, the event will also present music shows, art exhibits, workshops, street foods, and fashion.
Oi STU Open Park competition will score as a Pro Tour contest in the Olympic struggle, scoring valuable 60,000 points for the first placed skaters. As far as the Street is concerned, the contest will score 40,000 points for the champions as a Five Stars competition. There’ll be around 300 skaters among men and women on both competitions at Praça Duó, a sign of great skating level and a preview for Tokyo 2020.
“In its third issue, Oi STU Open consolidates as one of the main urban lifestyle events in the world joining the highest skateboarding performance with the essence of the streets. Closing the 2019 Calendar and opening the second Olympic season honors us a lot and this is a gift for Rio de Janeiro as well as for Brazilian skateboarding. We are very thankful to World Skate, to CBSk, to both Rio de Janeiro State and City administration highlighting Secretaria do Estado de Esportes, Lazer e Juventude, to all our partners and especially to Oi for keeping on trusting on the potential for connections and transformation within skateboarding and the urban culture” says Diogo Castelão, Rio de Negócios Director.
Brazilian skaters come strong for the Women Street competition. Olympic ranking leader Pamela Rosa from São Paulo is the current world champion, followed by Rayssa Leal on second place. Letícia Bufoni is on fourth place, right below Aori Nishimura from Japan.
“I’m really anxious for this Oi STU Open contest. Thank God I’m in a great year, very focused and determined on what I’m doing. I’m ready for the contest which will surely be awesome!The energy from the Brazilian crowd is priceless. I’m sure it’ll be a high level of skateboarding as always”, says Pamela Rosa.
In the Men’s division, Brazilian Kelvin Hoefler is the current fourth place. First position rider is Nyjah Huston from the USA, followed by Yuto Horigome from Japan and Gustavo Ribeiro from Portugal.
The Japanese riders rule the Women Park ranking with Misugu Okamoto on first place and Sakura Yosozumi on second, with British skater Sky Brown on third position. The best placed Brazilian riders are Dora Varela on seventh and Isadora Pacheco on eighth. American rider Heimana Reynolds leads Men’s Park ranking followed by Brazilian skaters Luiz Francisco on second and Pedro Barros on third.
“It’s very good to have another world class event here in Brazil in 2019, it helps the skate scene a lot and strengthens our essence here in the country. I hope it’s another chance for us to skate a lot, to see our friends and to inspire people. The Praça Duó skatepark is already known, it’s got a high technical level, one can make a good line and search for a good result here. It’ll probably be very warm during the contest , but being so close to the beach is very stylish”, adds Pedro Barros.
The 15 best placed riders in the Olympic World Skateboarding Ranking (OWSR) will be automatically qualified for the semifinals of STU events, without having to compete on the qualifying round. The two best results of each rider in the first Olympic season (from January to September, 2019) and the best five results in the second season (from October, 2019 to May, 2020) will be counted to qualify for the Games. Oi STU Open opens the second season on the race for Tokyo 2020.
“Oi STU Open closes an important year with a total of three international competitions in the Olympic race being held in Brazil. CBSk feels very honored to contribute with this special moment in Brazilian skateboarding, reinforcing its leadership and placing the country in the forefront of the international scene” states Eduardo Musa, the President of CBSk, the entity which produces the event in partnership with Rio de Negócios.
“We are proud to have the first event of the Olympic qualification path - season 2 here in Brazil, a country that can count on thousands of skateboarders and some of the Top PROs in the world! Oi STU Open will prelude to an incredible series of contests all around the world. We would like to thank Rio de Negócios, Skate Total Urbe and CBSK for their extraordinary effort in ensuring an amazing event! And, of course, we would like to thank the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro for hosting us!”, said Sabatino Aracu, World Skate President.
“2019 has been a wonderful year for Brazilian skateboarding. Along this year we’ve taken sport and urban culture to other locations such as Lauro de Freitas in Bahia, and Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais. Besides that, we’ve hosted the first World Park Championship in São Paulo within an Olympic season and now we close the year with the STU Open, which scores are very valuable for the Olympic race in both disciplines. As the Tokyo Games come near, we hope that this event in Rio to have a very high technical level. We have a feeling of a job well done in promoting and strengthening skateboarding all over the country” says Bruno Cremona, Oi Sponsorship and Events Manager.
“The realization of STU Open will be very important for the city of Rio de Janeiro, because besides attracting the best Brazilian and international Street and Park riders, it confirms that the State of Rio de Janeiro embraces skateboarding and trusts on its potential as a social and cultural transformer. It’ll also be an excellent opportunity to value the athletes who are preparing to represent our country in Tokyo 2020. We’re working to keep on attracting big sporting events to our state as we believe that apart from the tourism revenue, it’s an important factor to our youth’s awareness” adds Felipe Bornier, Rio de Janeiro State Secretary for Sports, Leisure and Youth.
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