The photo above might not look like much but trust us, it’s definitely worth updating! It won’t cost you a penny and you’ll have the best action sports footage in the palm of your hand. Now, if you don’t have the app already then you’re missing out! Head over to the App Store and download this piece of wonder now!

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mpora-video/id516605417?mt=8

Asperger’s Syndrome isn’t a very well known disorder as most people only know about it if it affects them. For those of you that don’t know:

“Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger’s syndrome or Asperger disorder, is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. Although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported.”

Special thanks to Wikipedia for the definition but you’re probably wondering why I’ve brought it up. Well, there’s not many stories out there that genuinely warm our hearts but this is one that has done just that.
“Graeme is a passionate skateboarder who has been a staple of the London skate community for 25 years. A regular fixture at every skating event, his eccentricities and enthusiasm for the sport are accentuated through his condition, Asperger’s syndrome.
Everyone has something in their life that puts a smile on their face; for Graeme this is skating.”

Huge shout out to Will Robson-Scott for creating this in the first place. Absolutely amazing.

It’s never good to hear about skateparks closing down but when it’s a park as big and as influential as Skatepark Amsterdam, it hits home that little bit harder. We recently received news that they were going to be evicted and they had this to say about it:

More Skate Videos

It seems that commercialism lands another punch into what the locals really want or need. If you feel like helping out, and we strongly recommend that you do, then head over to their petition website and put your name down. They’re also accepting any ideas you have for campaigning, so if you have any send them here – info@skateparkamsterdam.com

It’s a damn shame.

The name Tom Schaar rings a bell doesn’t it? Well, if you remember rightly, I spoke about Tom recently and how he landed the world’s first skateboarding 1080 over the pond at Woodward. If you didn’t read it, then read it here.

We all knew that this was the start of something special. It only takes one person with one new trick to blow the sport wide open, so it was no surprise that when he landed the 1080, the sport was going to be keeping an eye on him. The great thing about skateboarding is that not every competition has a mega ramp so the 1080 won’t be seen in your local skate park. One event that consistently has the mega ramp is the X Games and most recently, X Games Asia.
It’s one thing to land the 1080 in conditions purpose built for you but he must have been practising hard as this is the trick he took to competition hoping to win the gold. And win it he did!

Impressive doesn’t really cover it. He managed to beat Bob Burnquist by a clear 10 points, and Bob is a seasoned veteran in comparison. Does this mean that in any mega ramp events you’ll see Tom Schaar throw down the 1080? No one else has come close to this yet and all he’ll have to do will be to rock up, land it, leave with the gold. Although it’s still stunningly impressive it doesn’t do much for competition. At least in snowboarding the double cork was perfected by other riders, not Shaun White. This added a competitive element to the events whereas we might just see a 12 year-old taking the gold in every mega ramp competition until someone else can replicate.

Not taking anything away from the kid though, it’s f*cking impressive. Maybe it’s just jealousy? Either way, kudos to Tom Schaar.

Aaron was born with a Spina Bifida, a defect of the spine which meant he has never had full use of his legs. So determined to be able to do ‘normal’ things, he never let anything get in his way when he was growing up, even when he started to go the skatepark with his brother, a BMX rider. One day he decided he was bored of watching everyone through the fence and ended up dropping into a 4ft quarter pipe, taking a few falls at first but stomping it that day and never looking back. From then on, all he wanted to do was ride his wheelchair, working his way up onto progressively bigger ramps and pulling tricks very much inspired by BMX. In July 2006, Aaron became the first person to ever land a backflip in a wheelchair. He was stoked! Then his dreams were answered when Nitro Circus contacted him to be part of their show.

Aaron is now sponsored by Unit Clothing and gets to travel the world performing ridiculous stunts in his wheelchair. He has had the opportunity to travel within the US, as well as internationally, performing and speaking in front of many. He has attended summer camps for disabled children as a coach/mentor and has been featured in magazines, newspapers, and sports television. He truly is a hero.

Keep your eyes peeled for exclusive Nitro Circus Australian Tour updates on Mpora. Their European tour is going to Stockholm, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Dusseldorf, Antwerp, Arnham, London, Manchester and Barcelona later this year so get tickets now whilst they are still available!

As soon as he blasted onto the scene back in 2001, Travis Rice was not going to go unnoticed. He stamped his entry into the professional snowboarding world with a ballsy back rodeo to bolts on a 110ft gap super kicker at Mammoth Mountain in California. Since then he has tamed more competitions than you can shake a ski at, blessed our world with revolutionary parts in a selection of Absinthe films, and brought us That’s it, That’s all with his long time pal Curt Morgan and their baby – Brain Farm. Their second movie, The Art of Flight, was long anticipated and did not disappoint when the world wrapped their eyes around it, but before we could catch our breath, Rice goes and releases his latest brainchild – Supernatural – throwing the best riders in the world together on a mountainface riddled with custom ‘natural’ features. Phew! He is an impressive fellow. But let’s hope he has a sense of humour…

The Voleurz team have centered their submission for the 7-day film contest during the 2012 WSSF at Whistler around The Art of Flight – but with an interesting twist. To begin with, they suitably named their film The Science of Airborning, then spoofed their way past a lot of other elements from the first Art of Flight trailer such as the voiceover and our personal favourite, the swimming shot (recreated as more of a dive/bellyflop). We are all fans of Rice and his epically presented adventures but this really is comedy gold, and beyond the hilarity is some really impressive riding from the Voleurz team. Good work.

MPORA Action Sports

The world has kind of gone backwards. Back in 1965, Intel co-founder  Gordon E. Moore talked in one of his papers of the idea that technology would double in speed every two years. At the time, many people laughed, but to this day (as far as I know) this rule of thumb has in fact remained true. In the last few years though, video camera technology has become so incredible that it has blasted off the edge of fast into an abyss of slow. Viewing life in realtime is no more, we have entered the age of slow motion. Being able to see every last detail of each stage of everything in HD quality has become something not too foreign to our eyes, and although there are many cameras capable of producing the aforementioned, there is one culprit that seems to have taken the lime-light. Do you know what I am talking about? Course you do. Phantom.

The Phantom Gold has the ability to film in HD at over 1,000fps. It really is mind boggling. And the footage? Eye boggling. Especially when expert Phantom operator Chris Bryan gets caught at Teahupoo on a day to be remembered. Chris says of it:

“This day at Teahupoo – Aug 27th 2011 during the Billabong Pro waiting period is what many are calling the biggest and gnarliest Teahupoo ever ridden. Chris Bryan was fortunate enough to be there working for Billabong on a day that will go down in the history of big wave surfing. The French Navy labeled this day a double code red prohibiting and threatening to arrest anyone that entered the water.
Kelly Slater described the day by saying “witnessing this was a draining feeling being terrified for other people’s lives all day long, it’s life or death. Letting go of that rope one time can change your life and not many people will ever experience that in their life.” “

It has to be seen to be believed, so check it out for yourselves.

Check out Mpora Gear

If you are sitting there thinking that putting such an astonishing camera into some underwater housing is slightly crazy yet ridiculously awesome, then you are in fact correct. But why stop there? Why hasn’t anybody mounted one in say… a remote controlled helicopter? Oh balls, spoke too soon. They have. Snaproll Media are a company that specialise in mounting the industry’s top dog cameras to custom built RC aerial craft, bringing the most incredible and diverse angles to their clients. Remember the footage from the private park and pipe session in Aspen from The Art of Flight? Courtesy of these guys. Here’s what they say:

“For the past few years, SnapRoll Media has been at the forefront of remotely controlled aerial camera systems. Like most, we started out using DSLR cameras to record video, but it wasn’t long before the image quality wasn’t up to our standards. We began designing and building larger airframes to carry the weight of the cameras we and our clients wanted to use.

Our hard work paid off. We were the first to successfully carry the RED ONE digital cinema camera safely and smoothly. Then, we added Vision Research’s Phantom Flex and Phantom Gold high speed cameras to our arsenal. Furthermore, we had the opportunity to be the first in the world to successfully fly the new RED EPIC on our proven remote controlled aerial system thanks to Jarred Land and Jim Jannard.

We are constantly researching, developing, and fine tuning our helicopters to carry larger cameras with maximum stability. The greatest reward is seeing our clients faces when we get the shot that no crane, cable cam, or full size helicopter was able to capture. 2012 will be full of incredible projects along with further R & D on bigger and better remotely controlled (RPV) aerial camera systems. Stay tuned!”

Enough of the talk,  just check out their showreel from 2012. Prepare for your jaw to hit the ground, this thing is crazy good. Enjoy.

Which would you say is more impressive?

If you’re a keen follower of the sports on Mpora then you are going to be more than aware of the Dew Tour and how good it is. Over the past few years, as it grew in popularity, it also grew in tour stops. Last year there were plenty of stops along the way that pulled in huge crowds and made the competition for overall winner incredibly fierce but for 2012, it’s going to be a little different.
They’re classing the stops as Beach, City and Mountain and all of these categories are only having one stop each.

Beach: Ocean City, Md – August 16-19
City: San Francisco, Calif – October 18-21
Mountain: Breckenridge, Colo – December 13-16

For the full story, here’s their press release:

Alli Sports, a division of the NBC Sports Group, today announced a four-year renewal of their partnership with Mountain Dew, along with the 2012 schedule for the new Dew Tour. Alli Sports, together with Mountain Dew, who has been the tour title partner since its inception, is reshaping the Dew Tour to showcase action sports in three large-scale, premium and ‘grand-slam’ style events.

Leveraging the resources of the NBC Sports Group, which acquired 100% of Alli Sports last year, the new Beach, City, Mountain tour model will better serve the needs of the athletes and action sports community. The three premium events will boast expanded television programming and digital strategy across NBC, NBC Sports Network, nbcsports.com and allisports.com, as well as hyper-local promotional and programming opportunities through the NBC Sports Group’s owned stations and regional sports networks. At the event level, each stop will include expanded and new sports and disciplines, and an enhanced on-site experience featuring more live music and a new “Dew Tour Experience,” bringing all aspects of action sports culture to life throughout the five-day festivals.

“The action sports landscape has grown and changed dramatically since we launched the Dew Tour in 2005. The multi-stop series format was what the industry wanted and needed then. The Dew Tour changed the industry forever, taking the sports to a whole new level. The new Dew Tour, which will include three major events across Beach, City and Mountain venues, represents what the athletes and industry want and need today,” said Wade Martin President & CEO Alli Sports. “We believe our partnership with Mountain Dew represents one of the most unique, integrated relationships between brand and property in all of sports. This partnership extension and the new approach we created for the Dew Tour together with Mountain Dew, the athletes and the industry, truly underscores that.”

“Dew Tour continues to work hand-in-hand with the athletes. They asked for a platform that would elevate their sports and we worked with Alli to deliver that,” said Brett O’Brien, Vice President of Marketing, Mountain Dew. “With the new Dew Tour, we are working to ensure that we evolve along with the action sports community. With input from the athletes, we’re developing a platform that answers their call for fewer, bigger, better events.”

Spanning the country August through December, the 2012 Dew Tour schedule will include returns to Ocean City, Md. and Breckenridge Ski Resort, with a debut event in San Francisco on the West coast. The Dew Tour will integrate the character of each stop into the overall feel of the event, capitalizing on impactful Beach, City and Mountain backdrops as each of the three events will draw inspiration from the host city to create its own identity.

Beach: Ocean City, Md. August 16-19

City: San Francisco, Calif. October 18-21

Mountain: Breckenridge, Colo. December 13-16

The 2012 Dew Tour will include over 30 hours of live television coverage on NBC and NBC Sports Network. In addition, the Dew Tour will present an expanded digital offering including live competitions and behind-the-scenes exclusive content across multiple platforms. In addition, all broadcast hours will be distributed live internationally across Alli’s extensive network of distribution partners.

Utilizing the athletes as the drivers of the Tour, each of the three stops will present a different mix of sports and disciplines. Over the past six months, Alli Sports and Mountain Dew – reinforcing a long-standing commitment to the action sports community – have held panels with athletes, agents and industry veterans to determine the best way to progress the sports and elevate sports’ stars and the competitions. Open communication led to the development of the new model of the Dew Tour, as participants expressed their ideal courses, disciplines, formats and overall event authenticity.

For additional Dew Tour event information, visit www.Allisports.com

When this was mentioned to me I was wondering who would be called out as the skater that successfully landed this. Your mind runs through the crazier of the skaters out there and then it wanders over to Tony Hawk (he hasn’t landed anything bigger than a 720 for years) and perhaps Shaun White. They’ve been making a mark on the industry for years so it could be one of them…

Nope. It was neither of them. Which isn’t actually too surprising. As I’ve spoken to many people before, the youngsters in our sports are coming through a bit too fast these days so it’s pretty standard practise for something as ridiculous as this to be claimed by a youngster… which it was.
Skating at the MegaRamp at Woodward West in Tehachapi, California was 12-year-old Tom Schaar. With a Red Bull presence helping create the mega ramp (it wouldn’t be something ridiculous without the help of Red Bull!) he takes a few tries to get it down. There’s also another kid trying it as well but seeing as he didn’t land it, he’ll soon be forgotten within the depths of the internet.

Enough of my jabbering though! Here’s the story behind the epic spin from the boy himself.

Tom Schaar 2012 1080

There’s still some time to go before we see the world’s first 1800 in skateboarding. Something we’ve already seen in the ski world from Torin Yater-Wallace.

Red Bull Supernatural is an event that’s been spoken about at Mpora HQ for a while now, mostly about how ridiculously epic it’s going to be. But I just read some news that blew us all away and it should be something that raises your eyebrows too. It turns out that not only will Red Bull Supernatural be one of those events that you don’t forget for a while but it’s going to break out of the proverbial box and bring you something slightly different.

My first warning is that it might be only for you Yanks out there as this pretty much revolves around the screening of the comp on NBC. Don’t take my word as gospel though as I’m sure there are going to be ways to watch NBC in other countries. For everyone that has a smart phone with Shazam, you’ll be pleased to hear that the sports world has teamed up with Shazam to give you the ‘Rider’s Eye View’. But what does that mean exactly?
When the program begins and the riders prepare for their descent of the course, viewers can open the Shazam app on their smart phones and watch the riders riding down the face of a mountain. The TV will show the rider descending but your phone will show you the view that the riders have.

When the app is opened, it will recognise sounds from the broadcast to open up the corresponding video for the users. It’s a smart idea right? Here’s some more info:

What does this mean for our sports though? Is this something that’s going to happen more and more? With the growing popularity of snowboarding and freeskiing, there’s no doubt it’ll be on American TV more, and European, but with an idea like this that will almost certainly take off, we just hope it’s not something that tails off. It’s a great idea for TV broadcast so let’s see how long this one lasts.