Mathias Ringstrom "The Swedish Meatball" made his move to California at age 18 all in the name of Skateboarding. © John Parker

Mathias Ringstrom's Blog

Update: 8/10/06

The X Games were crazy this year.

When I first got there I was blown away with the ramp. It had a euro gap with a rail and elbow with a love seat, a big bank and hips. I missed the first 2 days of practice since I was in Birmingham, which was too bad since it was really hard to figure out a good line.  I had to sacrifice a couple of tricks in order to use the whole ramp. I though had a pretty good line going until I saw Bucky and Sean's lines.....  it looked like they both had been skating that ramp for years.  Since I missed the first 2 days I figured I needed to catch up, so I skated 4hr on Tuesday and 4hr on Wednesday.... maybe not the smartest thing to do... I was pretty beat up and tired on Thursday.

Thursday, the day of the finals, I took my first warm up run feeling pretty good until my foot got stuck on the bank while knee sliding... I felt my MCL stretch out  a little... I got up and tried another run and the knee buckled.. I was so bummed, I kept thinking I came all the  way here and now I sprained my knee. I went down to the medics and iced my knee for a while, after that I tried skating a little bit.. the knee would still hurt pretty bad, so I just tried to stay warm and wait for my runs.  My first run was ok, I lost some speed and didn't do a couple of the tricks I wanted but at least stayed on. My second run I landed super sketchy on my kickflip indy so I missed the handrail, I did however make a front foot impossible off the love seat.  3rd run felt really good until I went for a lipslide on the rail and the board just drifted away from my feet, I got back up real quick and finished the run... it would have been my best run if it wasn't for the lipslide.  So I ended up in 7th place, which I was pretty stoked on considering my knee.

The next day  I saw the doctor who told me I had a grade 1 MCL sprain and to keep off the board for a while.
So I went down to CTI to get a knee brace, so I could be skating the following week. The CTI braces are really good, I've torn my PCL, stretched my MCL and cracked my patella in half, if it wasn't for the knee braces I would have missed years of skating.

The rest of the X Games were great, between Travis doing the double backflip, Kevin Robinson with the double flair. Colin Mckay almost doing a backside tail slide backside kickflip out!!!!!! There was just so much stuff going down. One of my favorites was the FMX guy who did a backflip cliffhanger!!!!  The rally racing was great too, I've always been in to Rally, since I grew up in Sweden driving in the snow I think a car should be driven sideways.

Right now I'm just taking car of my knee (lots of ice and working out) so I can be skating the Dew Tour next week.

-mathias  

8/2/06

I just got back from Europe last night a (its been a long month, but fun..) I went over to see PLG this morning, he had knee surgery the other week. I guess he went off the ramp and hit a manual pad with his knee. he split his knee cap and opened up a 2 inch wide cut across his knee...with kneepads!!!!!

Birmingham, England was a good contest, there was a big crowd and a good turnout of riders. Everyone skated good. Both Tas and Terrance made 720's in their runs. Jake started his run with rolling in to a huge tailgrab 540 and double flip mute, unfortunately he fell with 5 sec left. Furlong won.  I got second. Now im going up to LA to practice on the new X Games ramp... which is supposed to be a crazy ramp with handrails and euro gaps... it looks like a lot of fun, but I think I need more than 2 days on it to get a good line together. I'll keep you guys updated on practice and the contest.

-mathias  

7/24/06

Not much has happened from last weekend. I'm still in Sweden, I've been mostly just hanging out with my family and
friends.... that I don't get to see enough.  The park here in Stockholm is really good "Fryshuset". The ramp is one of
the better ones in Europe. They have an indoor bowl and street course.  The other must see place in Sweden is Malmo, which has the 2nd largest concrete skate park in the world! (it was the largest until Shanghai built theirs).

I'm going to stay in Stockholm until Saturday, then I go to England for the LG contest in Birmingham.
After that I'm getting on plane to go to the X Games. I get in Monday evening so I miss the first day of practice.
(which I really could have used since they are having a crazy ramp this year)

-mathias  

7/17/06

Originally we were supposed to skate the Amsterdam contest on Friday and then fly to Denver for the Dew Tour on Saturday. But because of tv schedules Dew Tour changed their prelims to Friday.

The Contest in Amsterdam was crazy…… it was at one of the biggest raves in the world. 60,000 tickets were sold for Saturday. The ramp was really good, but surrounded by 4 stages with music blasting. We couldn't hear a thing, except 4 different beats. (I like hearing the sound of my wheels hitting the coping or just riding the skatelite when I skate, I find it weird to skate when you can't hear anything)

-mathias  

7/9/06

I'm in Prague right now for the Mystic Cup, the only world cup event in Europe this year.  They build a new street course every year and it's always really good. This year they also built a really good bowl.  The ramp on the other hand has seen better days.... They painted it and it seems like they didn't clean it off first! Underneath the paint there's a bunch of dirt, causing a grip tape effect....

The contest in Prague is a lot different from any other event. It's basically a good old fashion skate contest where people party just as hard as they skate. With all the beer tents, beautiful women, great skating and bands playing this event is a lot of fun. I ended up in second after Rune having a great 3rd run... It was close, Oh well at least the beer was good here. (1.20 usd each)

-mathias  

7/2/06