The Slappy Challenge is one of my favorite events. Over the weekend, a ton of activities take place across three days in the city of Lyon, France. WallStreet, the local skate shop, together with FilmTrucks, the local brand owned by the legendary Jérémie Daclin, organized an incredible amount of entertainment and an amazing show for any skater. This year, I had the pleasure of working with them, covering their social media.
Honestly, this was my first official social media role at a live event, and I was a bit stressed during it because I was trying to be everywhere—capturing tricks, the vibes, and every fun moment—but I realized it was impossible. So I did my best to showcase the highlighted tricks while also capturing the good vibes, and everything turned out great. I have a lot of experience filming and attending major skate events, but I had never done both at the same time. You know what I mean? If you’re skating, you miss someone else’s trick. So I tried to skate during the quiet moments outside the event and be everywhere during the event itself.
First of all, I want to thank Jérémie and Ben for trusting me and giving me the opportunity to work with them. They did an incredible job—greeting everyone, providing everything needed to be ready, maintaining excellent communication, and most importantly, making it a lot of fun. The first time I was there was in 2020, and I fell in love with the city and the Venice Lyon curb, one of the hardest spots. The first 30 minutes you try to skate it, you can’t; then the curb tells you what to do. But nothing works on the first try if you’re not a local.
On the other hand, this event was the best in the past nine years, or at least that’s how people felt. For me, it’s true. Although the HDV session was canceled due to rain, the vibes were incredible. The first day at the Fleurieu DIY spot was historic: many skaters, the biggest barbecue I’ve ever seen, tons of different challenges, a girls’ session with the best energy and the coolest tricks I’ve seen in a long time, and amazing shows at every spot. I don’t know if you know this, but the combination of a DIY spot and a barbecue is always a success.
The next day was at Venice Lyon, the main day on the curb, where you can see the best slappy event in the world. Believe me, there’s no bigger or better event than this. I arrived early to capture some stories for social media, and people were already warming up at the spot by 11 a.m.—a great sign that the day was going to be amazing. I took a few attempts before starting to film some slappys. The event officially kicked off at 4 p.m. with the longest boardslide, where Ace Pelka landed it in fewer than five attempts, earning the prize and the honor of the trick.
If you’ve never been, there’s a rounded curb where your wheels touch the ground the whole time because it’s low. It also has three challenges: after a long board balance, you have to clear a kicker while maintaining speed; then there’s a 20 cm gap where you have to ollie while doing a boardslide; and finally, the rounded curb becomes a thin curb where it’s easy to lose balance. Oh, and I forgot to mention—it’s over 50 meters long… it’s really difficult!
There were tons of amazing slappys and combos, like Sergio Santoro’s slappy manual slappy, which was an incredible show. Another girls’ session brought a lot of excitement with some very impressive tricks, and they gave away a bunch of Marshall headphones. After that, they set up a big obstacle in the middle of the spot, and the main show began with some flatbar grinds. The level was extremely high, and the crowd was super hyped. The final moment was the coast-to-coast ollie, where Robin Bolian stole the show, landing the longest, highest, and craziest ollie with a flare on his hand, making everyone thrilled to be there.
The last day was a brunch, courtesy of Wall Street Skateshop—the best French brunch in the city—held inside the skate shop, where we talked about how amazing the event was, what happened the night before, or simply made new connections with incredible people. We were supposed to go to HDV Plaza for the final session, but it was canceled due to rain.
I believe the two years I’ve spent making videos, creating content, and learning were a great investment to land this first role at a major event. Now, go check out our channels and feel the vibes—it’s all been uploaded! You can watch the videos. HERE.
