Friday, September 7

Etnies All Girl Skate Jam - International Girls World Championships

Press Release

Encinitas, CA - Take note as the final stop of the 2001 All Girl Skate Jam tour is set to take place Sunday, September 9th at the renowned YMCA skatepark located in Encinitas CA. For this event, the All Girl Skate Jam (AGSJ) will unite spectators with the best athletes from around the world in a venue that features state of the art ramps, rails and obstacles. And to top it off, it's free to the public!

Sanctioned by the International Girls Skateboarding Association (IGSA), the All Girl Skate Jam is an open street and vert skateboarding competition. The contest will run between 10am-6pm and features three divisions, grom (10 & under), amateur (with subdivisions: 11-13, 14-17 & 18 and over) and pro, so girls of all ages and abilities can participate. The biggest names in skateboarding including Cara-Beth Burnside, Jen O'Brien, Amy Caron, Cnaan Omer, Luciana Ellington, Vanessa Torres and Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins will be competing for nearly three-thousand dollars in prize money. In addition to all the skateboarding action, the event will include a festival-like atmosphere, complete with female DJ's, the monster limo, vegetarian food, and sponsor booths where spectators can swing by to check out the new goods and get some freebies along the way.

The sponsors lined-up for this event are Etnies, BC, Surfrider Boardshop, YMCA Skatepark, Sessions, Velvet, Nixon, Sector 9, Flexdex, Wahoos, Geometric, Chorus, Harbinger, Deessee, Urban Decay, With It Girl, Luna Bar, What Design, Christian Surfers, Meridian Lab, Aero Mexico, Danger Woman, Silver Photo and Talent Agency, with media sponsors Wahine, Paper, Heckler, Skratch, Blunt, Pacsun.com and Check It Out Girls Magazines.

The first stop of the 2001 All Girl Skate Jam tour, the Etnies All Girl Skate Jam, took place March 25th in Clearwater, Florida. First-place results were as follows: Street Pro - Vanessa Torres, Street Am - Hanna Lisk, Mini-Ramp Pro - Heidi Fitzgerald, Mini-Ramp Am - Hanna Lisk, and Vert Pro - Candy Kramer. The second stop brought the tour to NYC where they teamed up with The 2001 Panasonic Shockwave Core Tour. The street segment saw the likes of Vanessa Torres once again swooping up first place. Lauren Mollica and Sasha La Rochelle took second and third respectively in the pro division. For ams, Lyn-z Adams Hawkins, Jill Viggiani and Alexis Schempp placed first, second and third.

The concept for the original All Girl Skate Jam originated in 1990 when Patty Segovia organized the first girls' skateboarding demo in Reno, Nevada. Segovia, an established female action sports photographer, was disappointed at the lack of the same recognition and luxuries then enjoyed by their male counterparts. After almost seven years of planning, Segovia pooled her resources from the action sports world along with her contacts among skateboarding's female pro ranks, and the first All Girl Skate Jam was born in 1997. Originally an annual event, the popularity of the contest and demand from female skaters around the world have caused the All Girl Skate Jam to incorporate into an international tour. Part of the tour's proceeds will be donated to mental health charities that benefit those who suffer from mental illness and provide funding for ongoing research.

For additional information, directions, and more, log on to www.allgirlskatejam.com