Skateboarder Omar Hassan, 35, is known as one of the best in the world and as one of the smoothest. You wouldn't think a skateboarder as smooth as Omar Hassan would take a bunch of spills, but as Omar describes some of his travails, you can't help but think of Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner.

So, read forward here only if you have a high threshold for pain.

Omar Hassan says, "One of my first injuries came when I was doing a front-side air. I fell in a straight Pete Rose slider position with the board still in hand. I broke my thumb and ripped off the nail, which is insanely painful in itself."

Ow-ooo-ch! (By the way, younger folks, Pete Rose is an old-school baseball player known for sliding head first.)

When Omar Hassan was 17, he says he dislocated his ankle. Not broke, but dislocated. An ankle? That doesn't sound good, Omar. He says he broke BOTH the tibia and fibula bones in his leg, and the medical fix-up included six screws that will remain for life.

Now, consider this one: "In Japan, I fell and slapped my hand so hard on the ground that it blew out my palm. My palm literally burst open. I had to get surgery to close up the pad of my hand."

Does Omar Hassan love skateboarding or what? Consider his handsome mug.

"I was doing a Rocket air off a jump ramp and held on too long," Omar says. "I broke two teeth, and the force of the fall shoved my braces through my lip ... I've busted my chin open about seven times. There are too many different stories that I don't care to elaborate on. Landing chin-first in pools, on ramps, in the street. All the same outcome: a busted chin and a lot of blood."

Omar Hassan even uses his injuries to make impromptu product endorsements: "While jumping off the back of a Dumpster into a bank, my board bounced up and hit me on the back of my head. Because Black Label wood is so strong, my board gashed open the back of my dome, and I had to get 14 stitches."

So, if you ever happen to bump into Omar Hassan, try not to REALLY bump into him!

Sources:
http://skateboardermag.com/skateboarder-news-features/magazine/Skateanatomy/omar-hassan-anatomy/
http://www.grindtv.com/athlete/omar_hassan/1068/bio/
http://expn.go.com/skt/s/010416_omarhassan.html

Benji Galloway, 30, is among the world's best contest pro skateboard competitors. The past season was one of his best.

But Benji Galloway is almost among the least popular pro skateboarders in some circles. Some rivals say he is overly competitive. Others believe he is conceited. Somebody even spray-painted a pair of huge bacon strips on Benji Galloway's van one time, in an apparent reference to his connection with Bacon Skateboards.

Benji Galloway first insists he has plenty of friends on pro skateboardingbut acknowledges he has some detractors as well. Omar Hassan, Brian Patch and Frank Gerwer are among them.

Benji Galloway perceives that he may be viewed as an outsider because he grew up in the Deep South near Charleston, South Carolina, so he's not exactly a skateboard/surfer beach dude. He learned to skate in a facility called the Charleston Hanger Bowl, which he describes as "all wood and metal ramps with flesh eating screws sticking out." Therefore, he wore knee pads; in fact, he had basketball knee pads before he begged his strict father to borrow $9 for skateboarder knee pads. When Benji Galloway began entering competitions, he was the only guy in knee pads, so he figures other skaters saw him as either a showboat or a dork.

Benji Galloway also doesn't shy away from the fact that he concentrates on contest skating and racking up World Cup points. He says he needs to make some money. He's not the most popular guy with sponsors, and he doesn't appear in skateboard magazines as often as many of his peers. He does work as a carpenter, including construction of skateboarding ramps, in order to make a living. Not too many pro skateboarders are carpenters from South Carolina.

His rivalry with Omar Hassan, says Benji Galloway, started when Omar "felt he got the short end of the stick" from judges at a contest. Omar Hassan and Brian Patch then reportedly began calling Benji Galloway "Session Killer," because they didn't want to skate with him.

Frank Gerwer reportedly has a different nickname for Benji Galloway, "Content Point Guy." Galloway simply answers, "Well, I don't want to go to a contest and get last."

Sources:
http://www.automaticmag.com/issue59/issue59_benji.php
http://www.juicemagazine.com/Juice_store.html
http://www.skateboardermag.com/av/scmbnjgllwy/
http://www.bnqt.com/article.php?id=5933

Australian skateboarding sensation Jackson Pilz has assembled quite a life story already, even though he just turned 17 in October.

Here's how Jackson Pilz describes the first five years of his life: "I was born in Sydney at the Royal North Shore Hospital ... I moved to Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast when I was around 5 months old ... Not really sure what happened in between 5 months and 5 years. Then I found skateboarding."

Okay, young man, you're forgiven for forgetting all those preschool events. It can be kind of tough to remember your second or third birthday party. But to get on a skateboard at the age of 5, that's an earlier start than most skateboarders enjoy.

By the time Jackson Pilz turned 7, he was already entering competitions. He had the benefit of a family that would take him all across Australia.

"This was really a fun time for a young kid," Jackson understates.

At age 11, Jackson Pilz was already competing alongside the men. He finished eighth in the Australian nationals, making his debut in Melbourne in front of thousands of fans in Rod Laver Arena, named for one of the top tennis stars of all time.

"It was hard to imagine that things would get better than that, but then at the age of 13, I made my first overseas trip," says Jackson Pilz, describing a visit to England and then to the United States, where he practiced his craft at Woodward West Skate Camp in southern California. His skateboarding skills have also taken him to Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Denmark.

Jackson Pilz, unlike many skateboarders, does not express a preference for street or vert.

"I find that doing a bit of everything keeps you really well-rounded and opens so many more doors when it comes to finding people to skate with. I've skated with some of my biggest idols including Bucky Lasek, Colin McKay, Bob Burnquist, Rune Glifberg and heaps more," Jackson says.

Jackson Pilz keeps up with his schooling, but he explains, "If I can't skate, I go stir crazy." The local skate park at Coolum Beach is on the ocean, and Jackson says, "Life's pretty good in Coolum." Jackson Pilz just may wish that he could remain a teenager forever.

Sources:
www.billabong.com/au/html_gl/text_rider.php?pid=2&rid=44
411vm.com/skaters/Jackson_Pilz/1136/
www.fkdbearings.com/australia/fkd_australia_team_pilz.html

Some of us may go through a day facing no tougher question than "Paper or plastic?" at the supermarket. But try asking one of the most famous X-athletes, Shaun White: Skateboarding or snowboarding?

Skateboarding, says Shaun, is more difficult, "I think it's so much harder to go big and do the tricks. They're so much faster and so much less under control. I'm used to doing airs and stuff in snowboarding, but I almost think you go bigger on a vert ramp."

Shaun White says this, even though he learned skateboarding years before snowboarding.

It seems difficult to believe, with all that he has accomplished, but Shaun White of Carlsbad, Calif., just turned 22 in September. He's been a pro in both sports since he was in his early teenage years. He learned skating first, of course, at just 7 years old, but he has had more competitive success on the snow.

Shaun White's entry into the X-sports came quite simply. He grew up near the Encinitas YMCA, one of the few "Y" facilities you will find with a vertical ramp. With his older brother, Jessie, he started skating. Then he discovered snowboarding when he was 13, and with his skating experience, he was such a quick study that he turned pro in the snow at 14.

The powder took priority for a while for Shaun White, but by the time he was 16, he went back to skating long enough to join Tony Hawk on tour. He was a veteran two-sport athlete at 16! Since then he's pretty much been a snowboarder who also excels on skateboards. In this sense, he is similar to Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders from the 1990s, who were football players who also excelled at baseball.

Shaun White is all the more amazing because he had two open-heart surgeries before he reached age 5 to cure a congenital defect. He also surfs. Pro surfers beware! His hobbies include playing the guitar.

Shaun White recently won the 2008 Laureus World Sports Award for the best Action Sportsperson of the Year. Get this, he has not one, but two, Wikipedia sites on the web. The one with just his name focuses mainly on his skateboarding, and the one that includes snowboarding, well, you can figure that out!

Despite good reason to have a big head, Shaun White remains modest and always expresses thanks for his family's support. If you happen to run into him and his veritable "shock of red hair," just think twice before saying, "Yo, Flying Tomato." He used to like the nickname, but now he's sick of it.

Sources:

shaunwhite.com

skateboard.about.com/od/proskaterbios/p/ProShaunWhite.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_White

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_White_snowboarding

Pro skateboarder Adam Taylor, 19, says it's cool that fans have started to recognize him as among the world's top 10.

One day he may have company. His brother Dylan, 14, and his sister Leah, 12, are up-and-coming amateur skateboarders.

"My brother is pretty good," Adam told an interviewer. "My sister skates good too. She's only 12, but she can skate vert pretty well for a girl."

Adam likes vert, too, which no doubt has influenced Dylan and Leah.

"It's unusual for most people" to prefer vert skateboarding, Adam notes, "but I like riding the transition more than the street with the rails, the ledges and stairs."

The Taylor Trio got started in Cocoa Beach, Fla., when a 9-year-old Adam received a skateboard for Easter. (Shouldn't we all get skateboards on Easter, much less Christmas?) Adam fell in love with the board, and his younger siblings soon followed suit. They enjoy supportive parents, Toby and Lisa Taylor, who were into surfing as kids and understand how it feels to have a board under one's feet.

Recently, the family moved to San Diego just to be closer to the sport's major scene. This shows how important skateboarding has become for them.

Toby Taylor remembers one of the first times that Adam appeared on national television, as part of a CBS telecast.

"Just to see your kid being interviewed on TV and be able to look into a camera and say that he's living his dream ... it's pretty emotional for me," Toby Taylor says. "Adam's knows what he wants to do and what he has to do to get there, and it's the same with Dylan and Leah. It's been a lot of work for my wife and I too, but we wouldn't trade it for the world."

Dylan says, "I always try to beat my brother, and that helps me push harder and harder. Right now I'm after doing a 540, which for me is really the next step towards being able to go pro and really chase after my brother and the rest of the guys."

Although she is youngest, Leah may best sum up the Taylor family's feelings: "It's fun to skate with my brothers because they help me a lot, and it helps us all be together as a family. I love that we get to do things like this together, travel together, and just be with each other doing this. It's really cool. I feel so lucky."

The family has started a small business, Timeline Skateboards. Adam keeps a blog at go211.com/u/adamtaylor/blogs.

Sources:
lgactionsports.com/athlete.html?athlete_id=707&sport=skateboarding
kidzworld.com/article/14708-adam-taylor-interview
go211.com/u/adamtaylor/blogs
timelineskateboards.com

Rune Glifberg, a Copenhagen native, enjoys riding few things more than his skateboard; However, he owns what he describes as a "small collection" of BMW models that he gladly gets off his board for. His top-five desired rides include an E60 M5 touring car, a Lamborghini, a BMW M1, an E30 M3 and a Porsche GT.

Glifberg, who turns 35 in December, took up skateboarding as an 11-year-old when a friend brought him a wooden skateboard after a vacation in the United States. He was competing within four years and turned pro at age 17. By the age of 22, he gained fame with a victory at the 1996 Slam City Jam.

He experiments with all terrains, but his signature style is vertical.

"Front side, all day man, it's the best trick," Glifberg says. "It sets you up for anything you want to do. It's a nice, raw feeling. You can tweak a little salad in there, or you know, you can point it down towards the end on it, get a little smith end on it. It's just a great feeling trick. Sometimes it doesn't have to be tech to feel good."

He is known among his peers as versatile and flexible. Until his first X Games gold medal this year, he had won the most medals without claiming a top prize. This reflects his rare combination of performing risky tricks while still remaining consistent. He is one of the first skaters to pull off a kick flip backside lip slide, and it now is his signature trick.

Rune's peers also speak of his love for skateboarding. They say he skates just as hard in tight backyard pools, as he does in front of huge crowds on enormous half pipes. He recalls practicing during sub-zero Danish winters at a ramp covered by a tent. He has donated funds to refurbish his childhood Faeled Parken in Copenhagen.

Glifberg spends family time with his girlfriend and two daughters. They live in Costa Mesa, California, but they return to Copenhagen at least twice a year.

Sources:

http://skateboard.about.com/od/proskaterbios/p/ProBioGlifberg.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune_Glifberg

http://etniesskate.com/team/rune-glifberg

www.lat34.com/skate/rune_glifberg_2

www.volcom.team/team_rider_detail.asp?TeamId=2&riderId=5&SectionId=1

Talk about a youth movement in women's surfing! How about the Honda U.S. Open champion who will turn 15 in August? She's surfer Malia Manuel of Wailua, Kauai, who defeated another Hawaiian, Coco Ho, who is all of 17. The teen revolution took place July 26 at Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles, known to the world as Surf City USA.

Malia was a wild card because she had not entered enough events to be seeded, and she modestly said she was fortunate to catch a few good waves on a slow overall day. The surf averaged only 2 to 3 feet.

What will she do with the $4,500 prize?

"I think I'm going to buy some tires and rims for my Honda Civic, so when I'm 16, I can drive it." A youth movement indeed. She also said she felt "stoked."

She added, "I was just happy to be here. To get to surf against some of my heroes and to be in the final with my friend Coco is just something I would have never dreamed of."

Coco also has a wavy future and said she felt "over the moon" just to make the finals. She's the daughter of the legendary Michael Ho and the niece of former world champ Derek Ho. She took in $2,300 as women's runner up and copped another $3,000 earlier in the day as the women's junior winner. These days in surfing, it's tough to tell the women from the girls.

The full, somewhat bulky competition title is "GO211 LIVE featuring the Women's Honda U.S. Open of Surfing presented by O'Neill." Whew! That's a wave in itself, but sponsorship is a needed avenue to take the sport to a higher level.

Sources:
www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-surfing27-2008jul27,0,1283027/la-sp-su7.story
www.surfline.com/surfnews/surfwire/cfm?id=13420
www.freesurfmagazine.com/Volume-5-Number-3/Garden-Isle-Girl-Malia-Manuel.html

Brazilian surfer Raoni Moneiro has the surfing potential to become his country's first world champion.

Brazil is known for producing the world's best soccer players, not the world's best surfers, but Raoni Moneiro breaks the mold.

At 26, the former World Junior Champion hopes he still has his best days ahead with the men. He has a flashy and electric style - think of Pele and all of those other Brazilian soccer greats - but his daring approach has led to some injuries now and then. He also focuses on family life, missing a big World Pro Surfers event in Japan several years ago when his first child was born.

Life in the pro surfer ranks can be difficult, he says, because travel from coastal Brazil requires thousands of miles. Still, he says he is overjoyed with his success, and with the opportunity to make many new friends worldwide.

Moneiro grew up in the small town of Saquarema, about 30 miles from Rio de Janiero. Surfing was not a major part of the city's culture, and so he did not have a whole lot of company as he pursued his childhood dreams.

"At the school, the teachers would ask, 'What do you want to do?' I would tell them that I wanted to become a pro surfer," he recalls. "Anytime I would say that, they would laugh. Every time they laughed. But I decided I want to be someone, and here I am. I just do my job."

Saquarema does not have the highest tides, either. The result is that Moneiro is best known for his work in small, punchy waves. He has devoted himself to catching up on his skills in big-wave surfing. One of his best recent performances was during his freesurfs at Chile's "El Gringo" during the Rip Curl Pro Search in 2007.

He burst onto the pro scene in 2003 with a standout season in the World Qualifying Series, and now he is pushing to regain his peak performance. Many of his fellow competitors are rooting for him. He is among the favorites in the pro ranks, known for his humble and laid-back style. One writeup described him "as relaxed as a hammock."

Still, there is a fire inside. Moneiro's half-circular tattoo across his upper chest rides a wave toward both shoulders. It states: "Think it. Feel it. Do it."

SOURCES:
ripcurl.com/index.php?raonimontiero
worldprosurfers.com/outspoken_surfers_interviews.htm