UK – following the washed out first run earlier in the month, don’t forget the skate-o-rama show must go on – so the rerun is next week, Saturday 2nd August… no rain dances between now & then… please! {mosimage}France – les ventes Face to Face et Spider sont ouvertes chez Private-Surfshop jusqu’au 30 juillet. Equipez-vous pour surfer avec les néoprènes du surfshop Face to Face et les planches SPIDER .From 24th to 30th July, check out the Private-Surfshop sale of Face to Face wetsuits and SPIDER boards. {mosimage} UK – Knight Rider wakeboard & party event at the Princes Club, Middlesex, UK – tomorrow, Saturday 26th July. Comp starts 4pm and Hoff after-party from 9pm (tickets £5 for party) featuring Top Relentless UK Bands, including Young Guns and Skirt Box. Sponsors: Relentless, Vans, Oakley, O’Neil, Xbox, Indo Board. LATVIA – International extreme sports festival “Ride It Summer Jam 08” takes place on August 9 in seaside city Jurmala (30 km from capital Riga), Dzintari beach. Summer Jam is planned to be summer version of the “Ride It Winter Jam ‘08” with about 127 riders from 10 countries. BMX freestyle, MTB freestyle, “Converse Sk8 Attack” and inline contests will take place in the brand new, especially for-the-event-designed, skatepark. UK – Scotland has some of the best downhill mountain bike tracks in the world, each having its own unique characteristics: for example, Ae Forest near Dumfries ends with a blood curdling eight foot step down jump and the scary 40 foot, 45 degree "Elevator" chute to the finish; then there is world class Fort William, nearly two miles (3,5km) of track next door to Ben Nevis with 2000 feet of descent; completed by most in just five or six bumping minutes. Little wonder that the hospital in Fort William used DH racing in its study entitled "The Impact of an Extreme Sports Event on a District Hospital". GERMANY – the largest wakeboarding behind the boat event in Europe is coming back! The Chill & Ride wakeboard festival in Freistett at the river Rhine (40km from Baden-Baden) is awaiting you! Visitors & contest riders are welcome from August 21st to 24th to join a first class wakeboarding show as well as many side events! OLYMPICS – Apparently China will allow demonstrations in three designated city parks, Shijie, Zizhuyuan and Ritan, during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Although the announcement suggests that China has adopted a more relaxed attitude towards protesters during the Olympics, anyone wanting to protest will have to apply for permission from the city’s government and police, meaning in reality there will be few anti-government protests. Previous Olympic host cities have set aside areas for protests and the IOC said they had encouraged the Chinese authorities to do the same. US – already started, Extremity Events Network is running its 3rd annual Extremity Games, July 24-26, 2008, an extreme amateur sporting competition for people living with limb loss and limb difference. There will be free clinics for skateboarding, rock climbing, wakeboarding, kayaking and mountain biking held throughout the event. In addition to hosting athletes from around the world, Extremity Games will be welcoming members of the Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project, where recovering wounded warriors can not only compete in extreme sports, but can also learn about sports they have never tried before. (Please note, extremity.tv is not connected in any way to Extremity Events Network or the Extremity Games) Surfing The Vans Pro Junior, an ASP Grade-1 event, began yesterdayday at San Sebastian in the Basque Countr, just across the French border, inaugurating the crucial summer junior leg in Europe. The Vans Pro Junior, the first of four consecutive events taking place until August 24, got through Rounds 1 and 2 and and ran Heats 1 to 4 of Round 3 for an opening 28-heat marathon day. With swell predictions looking uncertain for the rest of the waiting period which lasts until Sunday, July 27, officials made the most out of the consistent four foot (1.2 meter) waves on offer and hope the weekend delivers a new swell as forecast. The GO211 LIVE featuring the Honda Women’s U.S. Open of Surfing presented by O’Neill started in glassy two-to-four (1m) surf. This ASP World Qualifying Series (WQS) 6-Star event plays host to some of surfing’s finest female athletes, with top ASP Women’s World Tour and WQS seeds battling it out for the prized Honda U.S. Open of Surfing title. ASP Dream Tour surfers Stephanie Gilmore (Tweed Heads, AUS), Sofia Mulanovich (Lima, PER) and Melanie Bartels (Makaha, HI) dominate the field of international competitors vying for the valuable ASP WQS ratings points towards qualification of the 2009 ASP Women’s World Tour. Want to win a custom built surfboard? Get your entries in to win your brand new “Gold Coast Surfboards ” surfboard, custom made for this competition – the surfboard will be delivered to the winner, anywhere in the world.