Lukas Bato / Unsplash
I’d argue that Skateboarding as a professional sport reached its peak around the time that Tony Hawk landed the first-ever 900 during the X Games in 1999. That helped Tony launch his empire of video games and brought his skating company Birdhouse to the next level but after he landed that trick on TV the sport overall began to slip out of the limelight a little bit year after year.
There was something about that ‘900’ that Tony Hawk landed in competition felt like ‘well, that’s it. Nobody can ever top that’ aaaaaaaand that’s not the case at all because an 11-year-old skateboarding prodigy from Brazil just set the Guinness World Record for landing the first 1080 on a vertical ramp, he also set a new record as the youngest X Games athlete.
Gui Khury has already accomplished more at 11-years-old than most pro skaters do in a lifetime. He started skating at the YMCA in Encinitas, California at the age of 4 and by 5 he was already dropping into halfpipes.
He attributes the recent period of quarantine for helping him be able to set this record because he was practicing more than ever.
Since the local schools were closed for the quarantine period, Gui began to skate more than usual since he had an abundance of time to perfect the tricks he wanted to master.
“I train 3 hours a day and when I go to practice the 1080, I warm up doing three 720 spins, which are 3 spins in the air.”
The added downtime gave him the perfect opportunity to tackle the 1080 despite the challenging components of the move – like nailing the landing despite the momentum of the turns.
As this was a feat he had wanted to conquer ever since seeing Tony Hawk’s impressive 900 (a skater who happens to be one of his idols), he worked up the courage to persistently try it until he made global history.
He entered the record books on Sunday, June 21st when Guinness World Records Adjudicator Raquel Assis presented him with his world record titles via a remote ceremony.
The ‘Youngest X Games Competitor’ record was actually set back in 2019 when he competed at the age of 10-years-and-225-days, but they presented him that record along with his 1080 certificate.