Tom Schaar Takes First Place at Vans Park Series

Today’s event took place on a custom-designed course right on the sands of Manly Beach outside Sydney, Australia, as part of the celebrated Australian Open of Surfing festival. When back-to-back rain interruptions put the contest in jeopardy, winners had to be decided by lightning-round finals.

Schaar covered every angle of the concrete park’s various pool corners, banks, and wall rides with technical precision. He started his winning run with a huge contorted stalefish transfer from the deck into the bowl, followed by a large backside 360 air transfer into the spine ramp, huge backside 540 and floating frontside ollie in the deep end, frontside nosegrind and frontside feeble grind in the bowl corner, lien air, backside crail slide and backside air to disaster on the 10.5-foot extension, and a no comply tailslide and massive backside disaster revert for a 90.26 point score.

Also skating hard today, Schaar’s Monster Energy teammate Raven Tershey earned 5^th place with huge frontside airs covering several feet of the deep pool wall, backside ollie over the spine, frontside ollie on the extension, backside Smith grind through the pool corner, and backside tailslide over the love seat for a 85.6 point final score. The 24-year-old from Santa Cruz, California, is back from a severe shoulder injury and skating the VPS this season pre-seeded as one of the 2017 Tour Wildcards.

Today’s win earns Schaar the Australia Global Qualifier title, and also puts him on the top of the leader board for the 2017 Vans Park Series Men’s Tour Challenger Rankings. Last season, Schaar advanced all the way to the Vans Skate Park Series World Championship in Malmö, Sweden, but closely missed the final eight.

Known for pushing the boundaries of vertical skateboarding since his early beginnings, Schaar made history in 2012 as the first skateboarder to ever land a 1080 aerial when he was only 12 years old. Since then, he has emerged as a successful competitor. His track record includes trophies for 1^st place in the 2014 X Games Big Air event in Austin, Texas, and 1^st place at the 2015 Vans Pool Party contest in Orange, California.

Schaar will be competing at upcoming global tour stops, including the Vans Park Series Global Qualifiers at Huntington Beach on July 30, 2017 and X Games Minneapolis, Minnesota from July 13-16, 2017.