Thrasher Magazine

This year’s Pool Party was even more festive than usual as it fell on Cinco De Mayo, and the opening ceremony was kicked off with a traditional mariachi band cranking out tunes next to the bowl. Not sure if the holiday had anything to do with the caliber of skating getting turned up, but it was on fire this year! The house was packed with skateboard fans, Steve Van Doren had the grill sparked up and the level of skateboarding was unbelievable. This event just gets gnarlier every year! —Rhino

Cinco De Mayo pool party! Navs approves

The battlefield as seen from the upper deck

Grosso’s on injured list but he'll be back in action shortly. We’re all sending love letters his way

The Pool Party is always a great place to catch up with old skate friends—Fish and Staab

South Bay heavy hitters, Mason Silva and Chris Russell

Sandro Dias took first in the Masters event, but he could have easily held his own in the Pro lineup. Yeah, he landed this

Sandro with a huge 540 in the square. This is how you grab that trophy

East Coasters Matt Dove and Collin Graham

Cab is no stranger to this contest

Lifeguard on duty—Salba and Hosoi

Big Ben Schroeder making the bowl look small

Lance and Lucero

Christian Hosoi smacks it to tail

Crowd favorite, Lance inverts in the round

All the way from the other side of the pond, Nicky Guerrero—solid as ever. Frontside invert

Lance takes off over the hip

Eric Nash brought his eggplant and left with second place in the Legends division

Chris Miller went off and took first place in the Legends. Chris with his son Lukas—turns out style is hereditary

George Orton hangs loose with Lance and Eddie Elguera

One of the baddest lensmen in skateboarding, MOFO!

This guy? No, this guy. Bennett and Dressen pointing fingers

Buddy, Bettie and Christian holding it down

Had to fan out with with one of my all-time favorite skaters, Rick Blackhart!

Posted on the edge of the coping the whole contest, Grosso, Pribble and Shark Dog

Kristy Van Doren presenting a check to Grind For Life’s Mike Rogers. Fuck cancer!

The Pro contest was lit! Bucky, melon to fakie around the corner

Moto Shibata was born in the late ‘90s but his crossbones are straight out of the ‘80s

The Pro event was so crazy Malba had to watch it on all fours

Fifteen-year-old Keegan Palmer stepped it up to the Pro event this year, tail grab around the corner

Alex Perelson’s patented kicky lien melon

Two-thousand-fourteen's winner, Tristan Rennie, skated great this year, invert to fakie

Clay Kreiner ain’t afraid to go big! Overhead lien air

Josh Rodriguez, egg revert

First time entering the Pool Party and Jimmy Wilkins turned some heads (including his own), Indy 540

Chris Russell had his game face on and qualified first in the semi-finals. Alley-oop egg

The crowd was on their feet for every run in the finals

Chris Russell, slob fastplant disaster into a solid third-place finish. Nice work, Muscle

Always great to watch Cory Juneau skate—massive FSO into second place

Tom Schaar fucking killed it and took home first for the second year in a row. Congrats, Tom!

Chris Russell and Steve Van Doren. As always, thanks for the great event, Vans!

The tre amigos. Now straight to bar?

Results:

Pro:
1st: Tom Schaar
2nd: Cory Juneau
3rd: Chris Russell

Masters:
1st: Sandro Diaz
2nd: Andy Macdonald
3rd: Chad Shetler

Legends:
1st: Chris Miller
2nd: Eric Nash
3rd: Steve Caballero