Bowl-A-Rama 2017 Wrap Up

cover image by dean Ttrkot/dts photography

words by ben stephens

‘Hey Siri, what’s the weather like this weekend?’

‘Hello Ben, the weather looks like absolute rubbish and I wouldn’t venture outside, we’re talking thunderstorms and record rainfall.’

The above was from last Friday, the eve before some of the best skaters were to take to the big blue bowl at Bondi for the annual Bowl-A-Rama.

It looked grim. The whole weekend was meant to be awash with rain, enough to fill the bowl and call the whole thing off. Thankfully, all forecasts had it wrong. In place of dark clouds, the sun came out, beating down on the beachside ‘burb, creating perfect bowl skating conditions.

Let me take you through a number of personal highlights:

The Girls Comp
They killed it. Straight out nailed the bowl. I’m talking better than the boys, better than the pros. Poppy Olsen, Amelia Brodka, Brighton Zeuner, Sari Simpson and Jordyn Barratt all smashed it. The Women’s final was stacked full of superb skating that just left all that were watching in a state of ‘wow’.

Hawk v Caballero
The Masters saw all your old school favourites shred to bowl to pieces. As Hawk said ‘It’s like 1985 out there’ – with so many legends in the bowl, it pretty much was. Hawk (48) narrowly missed out on being crowned as champ, with Caballero (52) taking the top spot. It was a final like no other.

Mikey Zion
Over the weekend there were some gnarly tricks landed. Though it’s what wasn’t landed that really took out the top spot. Mikey Zion took that with an attempt at an iceplant to fakie off the scaffolding on the deep side of the bowl. As he brings it down to land… Just watch the clip. It’s brilliant. Also a huge shout out to the production team, you guys nailed it.