Being at a real street competition in Oslo without rain is like Chicken McNuggets without the chicken (Oh wait – is that really chicken inside the chicken McNuggets?)... Anyway – this year was no exception with regards to having a rainy day.

We started out as always at the Frognerparken ledges. This a true classic spot in Oslo that all the locals love and all the visitors hate – primarly because Oslo is filled with so many other way nicer spots. Well – a tradition is a tradition – and actually it isn’t that bad of a spot. The competitor count was only half as big as when we first started throwing the Oslo real street competitions back in 2003 – so that meant having only 2 (very populated) heats at the first spot.

As something different, I decided to step away from almost everything related to organizing the competition – so I actually competed! Wow! Being the one that skates is actually pretty cool… I can strongly recommend it.

Anyways – some really nice tricks were thrown at the first spot. Most notable for me was Olav Norheim’s Alleyoop Negative Acids, Stian Christiansens truespin tabernacle and crazy budget switchups and Victor Nyåker’s fakie 540 mizou. Being part of the competition, I noticed that most people skated really slow – but these three guys as well as some other hardened locals kept it real with full speed.

The second spot was Høyenhall skole – which is pretty much a pair of middle rails (transferrable – but hard to transfer as the top rail ends low, and the next starts high), and 2 more rails put on ledges on each side of the middle rail. Here, Olav Norheim made the trick of the day – first try – a soul to soul transfer on the two middle rails. It was truly amazing – and completely flawlessly executed. Victor Nyåker tried to do the same transfer – just doing topsouls – but totally wrecked himself on the last rail.

As for my own records, I actually made it on to round number 2. Yipii… so I must have some talents. I got to skate 2 or 3 minutes in round number two, but our group got caught up in the rain. So we moved the heat to Helsfyr – the spot that has been second spot in 3 other Oslo real street competitions – just because it is a nice backup spot for rainy days. And it’s always raining at spot 2 in Oslo.

After spot 2 was finished, we headed to a death kink rail that tops most death kinks I’ve seen. It was nasty! Crap runup, and landing – made better with some wooden plates. Here, only 3 people were brave enough to do the rail to the end: Kenth Ulvedahl, Olav Norheim and Jonas Bødtker – the three winners.

Kenth tried to 360 soul it, and made it all the way through the kink, but as he had too much dirt on his frames from prior attempts, he skates choked and led him into an ugly ugly slam (Check out the pictures). So his regular soul (first try) got him his third place. Olav Norheim only needed 10 minutes to do his soul gap the kink to soul, where after he had proved his worth. Finally, Jonas Bødtker pulled off a number of tricks, including a topside acid through the kink, a topsoul, and a topsoul gap the kink to topsoul, which finally gave him the first place.

After the competitions were parties, clubbing, and nachspiels like the can only happen in Oslo. Good times for sure.

The final results were:

1. Jonas Bødtker (NOR)
2. Olav Norheim (NOR)
3. Kenth Ulvedal (SWE)