The first time I met Tony Hawk was at the Swedish Summer Camp in 1985. Already then he was one of the best skateboarders in the world. But noone would had beleived back then that a skateboarder would be one of the most famous athletes in the USA. But that is what some surveys say; that Tony today is one of the most known. Truly amazing!

Being the announcer and doing a demo at the Tony Hawk Grand Jam in Linköping, Sweden.

After the Summer Camp (where we one rainy day played basketball and I hurt Tony’s foot, and who knows, I could had stopped his career right then…) we met at various contest in the 1980’s and early 1990 when contests usually consisted of all different skateboarding disciplines.

Tony has made several visits to Sweden for both demos and car races, yes, car races.. gumball 3000, where he did a visit to the pools in Björns trädgård in Stockholm. The news about his visit spreaded like fire on Swedish websites.

In May 2011 Tony came to Linköping in Sweden with his vertramp and the Tony Hawk Grand Jam. The first time he brought one of his big shows here. I was invited to do a demo with BMX:er Andreas Lindqvist before the vertriders and the both of us were also the speakers during the event. I have to admit I was very nervous being the announcer for a verte vent. But my goal was not to namedrop tricks, I don’t know all the names! but to get the crowd going and support the riders.

Have you ever told yourself things like “don’t do it, don’t do it”, and then you accidently do it? Like the negative thoughts makes you do things wrong.  I was nervous I would announce the wrong name when the riders started to drop in one by one as they had no set order and some of them were new names to me. And of course that happened! It was like “don’t say the wrong name”, “don’t say the wrong name”, and I did! I immediately corrected myself, but it felt so embarrasing.

The demo me and Andreas did in the flat bottom of the vertramp was fun and relaxing. It was a 30–45 minute jam and we took turns and we also announced about the coming vert event as well.

One wheelie.

180 kickflip, and in the front row some of my old skateboarding friends.

Spacewalk to 360.