February 6th 2000, Reese Forbes Ollie Challenge

Danny Wainwright holds the World Record for highest Ollie.

Danny popped a whopping 44.5 inch (113 cm) behemoth of a floater at the Action Sports Retail Tradeshow Reese Forbes Ollie Challenge, beating Reese Forbes and pocketing a cool $10000.

Since this event took place, egos have been bruised, a switchstance ollie challenge (Alex Bland 40.5 inches) has been held, imposters have beed spotted, and challengers are spotted on the horizon.

In any case, history was made and Danny Wainwright etched his name in skateboard history.

June 27th, 1999

At X-Games VI, in San Fransisco, Tony hawk landed the first ever 900 on a skateboard in front of millions.

This one event shot Tony through the roof of success and saw skateboarding hit the mainstream hard. Congratulations to the birdman for landing this trick despite Danny Way coming oh-so-close almost a decade earlier in an H-Street video, Risk It. Since the 900 has been opened, Sandro Dias and Giorgio Zattoni have added their name to the exclusive list. The 1080 is still up for grabs though.

June 24th, 1995

On June 24th 1995 Skateboarding stepped into the mainstream for good.

ESPN launched the Extreme Games from Newport, Rhode Island USA. This event would create a tidal wave of 'X-treme' attitude and awareness in society and skateboarding has suffered and celebrated because of it.

In 1996, the event was renamed the X-Games and that title has stuck till the present day. In a bid to reach the core supporters and misled youth, ESPN and ABC threw skateboarders, sky-divers, rollerbladers, BMXers and anyone else with an independent thought process into the same circus pen and demanded entertainment. Despite dire conditions and poor pay, some wrinkles were ridden out and a televised audience of millions got to witness such historic events as Tony Hawk landing the first ever 900 on a skateboard.

Whilst the majority of skateboarders declared their discontent at such foul play, the Extreme Games have budgeoned multiple spin off events and the money that competitors can win has kept more than one professional off the streets.

Strangely enough, skateboarding hated the fact that it was pigeon-holed along with it's sworn enemy the rollerbladers who in turn thrived off such an event. As tables turned and fruitbooters could no longer elaborate of grabbing their feet, skateboarding hoarded the biggest success and inline skating was dropped from the schedule. Does that make bladers more X-treme, or more legit..?

Sunday sessions

There's no excuse for missing a sunday session.

All your homies are out, all the shops are shut, and there's nothing better than a bit of a sweat and stretch to get those saturday night toxins out of your system. If you have a skatepark, I suggest designating sunday street skating day because it's your best chance at hitting up all of those major bust spots.

August 16th, 1997

On August 16th, 1997, Danny Way changed skateboarding forever.

On one sunny afternoon Danny Way blasted a massive 12 foot kickflip and an 18ft air on a customized DC mega ramp- the first of its kind- and then proceeded to jump out of a hopvering helicopter into the ramp. The photos appeared on the cover of Transworld Skateboarding Magazine, but the 'secret' session was poached by Daniel Harold Sturt for Thrasher Magazine.

Albeit the scoop was rumbled, this event brought all eyes upon Danny as he charged ramp riding into a whole new realm. Since this historical day, Danny Way has smashed any previous record for highest and longest airs with an incredible 75ft horizontal leap followed straight away by a massive 23.5ft vertical ascent. Danny has also set the world record for the highest bomb drop at 82.3 ft of which 28 ft was free-fall, and leaped the Great Wall of China.

Danny Way is also the ONLY skateboarder ever to win the Thrasher magazine Skater of the Year title twice in 17 years.

1993

1993- The year Thrasher pronounced skateboarding dead.

Anyone who was skateboarding during this fateful year will bear witness to many examples of suicidal status quo.

1993 was Goofy Boy, 38mm wheels, flat boards, XXL clothes, attitude and pressure flips.