Photos: Ed Amador
March Madness is here, and we don’t just mean basketball, we mean skim, skim, skim! This past weekend the 20th anniversary of the coveted Melaque Skim Contest in Melaque Mexico went down. Working through lots of complications and rapid changes, the organizing team did a great job making the best out of a not-so-great situation, our hats off to them!
Team riders from near and far were there to support and hang out with some of everyone’s Zap Team favorites, including BOTH Gerardo and Yahir Valencia, Elian Juarez, Leo Freitas, and Oliver Brambila. Cheering their teammates on from the sidelines due to injury and personal matters were Kika Freire, Luis “Changa” Sanchez, Emilio Zepol, and Pablo “Machete” Real.
The weekend consisted of dreamy contest conditions, typical for Melaque, shore break smacking 4’-6’ swell hit the beach with waves for everyone, and not to mention the undoubtedly beautiful low 80-degree weather all weekend long, how could you not dream of being there! Pro heats started with 3 mans, where the whole Zap crew made it through to quarterfinals. All quarterfinal heats were won by hairs on chins, with new and familiar faces giving the judges the hardest job on the beach! All the guys were ripping with 360 spins and 360 shuv-its out to driving overhead barrels, quick snappy turns under the lip to more driving barrels, and huge backside and frontside 180s off the lip onto dry sand. The boys did not disappoint! Seeing new head-to-heads, Elian and Leo battled it out, with Leo advancing to semi-finals and Yahir and Oliver gave the whole beach a show, with Yahir advancing to the semi-finals. Wrapping up the weekend Yahir took home a well-earned second place finish with Leo Freitas bringing in the bronze. Well done guys!