An 11-year-old skateboarder named Guy Khury earned himself a place in history this week by landing a record-breaking 1080-degree turn on a vertical ramp in his grandmother’s backyard. And luckily, his old man caught it on video.
A 1080 requires three complete 360-degree revolutions in the air before landing. To put things in perspective, Tony Hawk was 31 years old and needed 12 attempts in a row to land his first 900-degree turn at the 1999 X Games. 900 degrees, for those of us who are math challenged, means two-and-a-half rotations midair. Fewer than a dozen skaters have matched that record in the last two decades and not one has eclipsed it, until now. Guy Khury should give lessons.
Guy lives in Brazil with his family, who, like the rest of us, have been home from work and school due to the novel Coronavirus pandemic. Guy’s dad, Ricardo Khury Filho, spoke to Reuters about the effect the quarantine has had on his son’s skateboarding. “Now he is at home more, he eats better and he has more time to train and can focus more on the training so that has helped.”
And big shoutout to his grandmother, who turned the back of her farm into a literal skate park for her beloved grandson. “He has an opportunity to train here. If he didn’t have [the skate park] … he would be stuck at home like everyone else and unable to do sport. So the isolation helped him focus,” his dad added.
Guy himself spoke out on his accomplishments, with all the articulation and exuberance of a pre-teen, exclaiming “I was like, oh my God, what did I just do?”
You just made history, that’s what! Guy sent the video to all his skating heroes, as he did when he landed his previous 540, 720, and 900-degree turns. (The latter he accomplished at age 8.) Some of his heroes have even added the video to their Instagram stories. Guy boasts an impressive 45k Instagram followers himself (he’s even verified). Check out his feed for a ton of addictive skateboarding content complete with slo-mo editing and pop-punk soundtracks.
To peak at 11 years old would be a shame, but I get the feeling this kid is only going to keep making history. For now, he’s earned ALMOST as much respect as this classic skateboarding hero… George the cat.
