“Without it, I would be dead,” Luan says about how skateboarding saved his life.
Hailing from the dangerous streets of a favelas, (slum or shantytown slot bonus new member in Portuguese) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Luan has had more of his fair share of time through the wringer. His parents gave him up at birth and was thus brought up by his grandmother. At the outset, violence was a way of life and anybody who does not conform to the rules of the streets will be dealt with accordingly.
“Where I grew up, there were very young kids that carried around guns,” he says. “If anyone tried to get into our neighborhood, these kids would stop them at gunpoint and make sure they belonged.”
This being the way, when Luan was RTP Slot given a plastic board at age 9, the board gathered dust in his closet for months. It was not until he caught a whiff of a real skateboarder doing real tricks that something inside him clicked.
From then on, he would be practicing with his old plastic board at the concrete skate plaza and building a team of skateboarders never before seen in their area. Luan has found his passion and he was hungry to grow.
Thrasher Magazines features a week’s worth of skate footage by Luan Oliveira.
Bound to poverty, however, Luan had situs slot deposit pulsa tanpa potongan to work around getting resources to fuel his skate career.
“I skated all day long and didn’t even eat sometimes, because I didn’t have money,” he says. “But I could not stop skating. All I cared about was skating every damn day and getting better.”
The first time he was able to compete, he had to earn the trust and sponsorship of a local skate shop called ‘Matriz Skateshop.’ They paid for his bus ticket to the city and his entry fee for the competition.
This proved to be a worthy investment. Besides bringing home second place for that competition, Luan also gathered product prizes which he then sold so he could buy more bus tickets and enter more contests.
He added that to save up on the cost for accommodation, he and his friends would have to skate at bus stations overnight sicbo and wait until the first bus going towards Porto Alegre would arrive. According to him, this was how his life cycled for a long time.
The turning point of his life came in 2005 when his grandmother passed away of cancer. It was a tough blow on Luan, because the way he saw it, there was nothing left for him but skateboarding.
“It was really terrible for me. She was the only real family I had,” he says.
It was because of this incident that he knew he had to put the pedal to the metal on his skate career and escape the adversities that held him down.
“I knew I had to get out of the ghetto and that skateboarding was how I was going to be able to leave,” he adds.
Following this, Luan dedicated his days to shredding gnar, winning contests, and filming his exploits.
A couple of years down the line, Ben Powell from Sidewalk Magazine chanced on a video of Luan and was in awe. Consequently, he sent the video to Geoff Rowley, pro skater and co-owner of Flip Skateboards. In a curious twist of fate, he won a contest at age 17 that awarded him with an all-expense-paid trip to California. That trip and the attention that he was steadily attracting from fans and industry legends alike were the catalysts that prompted his big move to the United States in 2007.
Upon reaching the mainland, there was no stopping Luan’s star from skyrocketing. Only a year later in 2008, he won the Tampa Am contest. A year after that in 2009, he won it again. Prior to Luan, a Tampa Am two years consecutive wins has never been done before. He is still the only skater in the industry to manage to achieve this.
At this stage, Luan has established slot pulsa himself as one of the most technical yet stylish skaters of his generation. His incredible board control and clean technical tricks, in addition to his iconic ‘pop’, was what landed him his debut part on a Flip Skateboarding film called ‘Extremely Sorry.’
Luan Oliviera’s earliest features include the Flip Skateboarding film, Extremely Sorry.
The momentous event of turning pro finally happened for Luan in 2010 when he was signed by Flip Skateboarding.
“Luan has been on a skateboarding rampage of technical video wizardry and contest annihilation for the last year, we are psyched to introduce him to the ‘big leagues’ as a professional skateboarder on Flip. Make us proud Bro,” says Geoff Rowley upon announcement of his going pro.
Since then, Luan has continued to join contests and make waves in the industry as one of the pioneers of high-level technical tricks. He has won championships at the Copenhagen Pro in 2010 and 2011, became a Street League Skateboarding Pro in 2011, won Tampa Pro in 2013 and 2015, won 2 silver and 3 bronze X-Games medals.
In Luan’s wins, he has managed to defeat the likes of other SLS Champions and prominent figures in the skateboarding world: Nyjah Huston, Paul Rodriguez, Austyn Gillette, Shane O’Neil, and Chaz Ortiz.
Much like his talented contemporaries, Luan’s super technical and ultra human precision when executing a trick has earned him a reputation for landing the hardest tricks. This makes way for his entrance to the ‘9 Club,’ an exclusive list of skaters that have landed a 9 and above score during their run in the Street League. This is a feat he achieved 18 times in the SLS, earning him the third spot on the top club pros. His highest score is a 9.7 on a Nollie Hardflip Noseslide 270 Shove-It. He is defeated only by Nyjah Huston’s inside Backside 270 Noseblunt and Shane O’Neill’s Switch Double 360 Kickflip which both scored a 9.9.
Luan Oliviera lands a Nollie Hardflip Noseslide 270 Shove-It in the 2013 SLS
Moreover, he has competed in five Super Crown World Championships and placed 4th in 2016 overall.
At his peak, he was being heralded as the face of Latin American Skateboarding. Luan’s skate style has become so iconic that he has garnered the nickname, “King of Pop,” a reference to his near-perfect pop that initiates an unnatural height when executing tricks.
