Ready to get radical: Top skateboarders coming to Everett

Some of the world’s top skateboarders will be showcasing their talent in downtown Everett this weekend.

Street League Skateboarding, the world’s premier street skateboarding organization, is coming to Angel of the Winds Arena on Saturday and Sunday.

The lineup is headlined by five of the six men’s and women’s street skateboarding Olympic medalists from last summer’s Tokyo Games.

“This is a chance to come out and watch more than 40 of the world’s greatest skateboarders doing all kinds of tricks on all these unique-built features,” said Grace Coryell, the senior public relations director for SLS parent company Thrill One Sports & Entertainment.

“You can watch skateboarders who are literally the best in the world.”

Everett is the second of four stops on this year’s SLS Championship Tour. The tour began July 16-17 in Jacksonville, Florida, and continues Oct. 8-9 in Las Vegas. After the first three events, the top skaters advance to the SLS Super Crown World Championship on Nov. 5-6 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

This is Street League’s third trip to the Pacific Northwest since its founding in 2010. Seattle’s KeyArena hosted an event in 2011 and Portland hosted an event in 2013.

“Seattle just has such a vibrant and dynamic youth culture and skate scene, and that extends up into Everett,” Coryell said. “And the Pacific Northwest in general just has a very strong youth culture that connects with skateboarding. We thought that it was a great time to bring it back here.”

The men’s lineup features six of the eight street skateboarding finalists from last year’s Olympics, including gold medalist Yuto Horigome of Japan and silver medalist Kelvin Hoefler of Brazil.

The women’s lineup features four of the top five Olympic finalists — including gold medalist Momiji Nishiya of Japan, silver medalist Rayssa Leal of Brazil and bronze medalist Funa Nakayama of Japan.

“In Jacksonville, we had several skaters all in a row get scores in the nines (out of 10),” Coryell said. “… It’s gotten to the point where everyone is super good, and you’ll see nine after nine.

“And even if you don’t know exactly what (tricks) they’re doing, it’s so visually interesting and cool to see.”

In street skateboarding, skaters compete on a street-like course with obstacles such as stairs, rails, curbs and benches.

Each stop on the SLS Championship Tour has a custom-designed course. One unique aspect of this weekend’s course is a particularly long rail.

All scoring is based on a new format in which skaters do two 45-second runs — also known as line attempts — followed by four single-trick attempts.

“You get to see a full skateboard street run, but then also the bang-bang, best-trick section,” Coryell said. “So it’s really an exciting format.”

The action begins with Saturday’s preliminaries, which run from noon to 6:30 p.m. The top eight men and top eight women from the preliminaries advance to Sunday’s finals. The women’s final is from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., followed by the men’s final from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. The men’s final will be televised live on ESPN2.

Tickets are available at StreetLeague.com, with both one-day and two-day options.

“It’s a great event to come out for the core skate fans, families and young adults alike,” Coryell said. “Action sports athletes, especially the skateboarders, are very interactive. In Jacksonville, for example, they were signing autographs for fans and throwing hats into the crowd.

“It’s a very interactive, fun entertainment experience, and I think good for all different groups of people. So it should be a fun weekend.”

SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE

Men’s practice — 8:30-10:30 a.m.

Women’s practice — 10:30 a.m.-noon

Doors open — 11 a.m.

Women’s prelims — noon-1:35 p.m.

Men’s practice — 1:35-2:50 p.m.

Men’s prelims — 3-6:30 p.m.

SUNDAY’S SCHEDULE

Men’s practice — 10-11:30 a.m.

Women’s practice — 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

Doors open — noon