Soldiers… Skaters….Ready!

No Limits, no restrictions The RED BULL ACCESS ALL AREAS in the Peruvian Army Special Forces Base

Probably everyone that rides skateboard has dreamed about skating inside a church, an airport, a museum, an office or any other forbidden and strange places. It’s a dream that the Red Bull Access All Areas event wants to become true for the top skaters around the world. This event is about forgetting limits, signs and to fly the skaters’ imagination to perform the best maneuvers and tricks in a place where normally this sport is not permitted. This event that has been realized in different countries around Europe and South America such as Germany, Austria, Prague, Greece, Switzerland, Colombia, Venezuela, Italy and Spain, arrived to Peru for the first time on December 6th to challenge the best national skaters to show their talent and creativity in the Peruvian Army Special Forces Base, a part of the National Intelligence Service where the most secret military operations are planned, no doubt that this is a forbidden place, opened to skate just for one day, just for them…

The talented Peruvian skaters Yosip Yactayo, Freddy Wong, Daniel Suarez, Christian Espinoza, Guillermo Vascones, Erick Ziegler; Peter Chlebowski and Alfredo Ahito, who are known in the local community for their talent, brave and creativity were invited to this unusual event. Each one arrived with his own idea. The big space in the Special Forces Base, and the “war” objects that could be used as skating obstacles and ramps—not only trails, walls and picnic tables but also a huge war truck and a chopper-- opened a world of possibilities for the skaters to show what they know in a friendly environment. For over 4 hours they had fun skating over the rails and ramps in place and building unusual obstacles, showing great tricks to their friends and the soldiers present.

Everything started with a military welcome for the boys. The army commands were formed in groups: men with knives, ropes, camouflage specialists and shooters, welcomed the skaters showing a part of their training. After the greetings the skaters started to place the first ramps and obstacles. They began with safe tricks over ramps and barricades, 360 grades flips, backslides and other complicated stuff. But they didn’t wait, and crazy ideas came along when they moved to the maintenance zone, where they had pretty complicated uphill ramps. You can ask Freddy Wong, who took home 10 stitches. Another crazy ideas were performed in the picnic tables’ zone, where the soldiers eat their lunch. “They never let us to ride over picnic tables, it was great to build a mini circuit with uphill and downhill parts and do things over the wood tables,” commented Yosip Yactayo, who has ridden skate for 18 years now. While the boys where taking a rest the soldiers prepared a surprise for them in the central patio: they literally set on fire four tires, the action was exciting and more than a crazy skater jumped over them praying not to get burned. “I liked it a lot, because we were all together and the place was great to do different things. To jump over the military truck and tires catching fire was something fun,” said Peter Chlebowski, one of the craziest boys, who jumped over a 2 meters high truck flipping his board on the air.

After resting a few minutes and a fast food lunch, it was time for the group picture. All the skaters wore military trousers; they hugged and posed for a picture sitting over the chopper. The soldiers said good-bye to them jumping with ropes from the second floor of the building showing the brave hood of their special forces. “It was definitively a crazy afternoon, we are so tired,” commented Daniel Suarez, who won the skate trip to Brazil drawled among all the skaters that participated in the Red Bull Access All Areas.