Kimberley Diamond Cup World Skateboarding Championships Return October 2-5:
\nOrganizer WSGP Expands Event to Include Women\u2019s Street Championships<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Press Release:<\/p>\n
(Sacramento, Calif. \u2013 June 11, 2014) \u2013 World Skateboarding Grand Prix (WSGP) today announced the dates for the 2014 Kimberley Diamond Cup World Skateboarding Championships (KDC) as well as the addition of the Women\u2019s Street Championships. Presented by Kumba Iron Ore, the KDC world championships will return to Kimberley, South Africa, October 2-5. The event draws the best skateboarders from around the world to compete for a prize purse of more than $500,000. The championships have evolved into a nine-day festival featuring activities for local youth and visiting skate fans from across South Africa leading up to the KDC main event.\u00a0 The festival runs from Sept. 26 \u2013 Oct. 5 and includes skate clinics, pro demos, autograph signings and some of South Africa\u2019s top musical acts and performers. This year, for the first time, a women\u2019s street champion will also be crowned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were looking at ways to improve the event and the one thing we felt was missing was a Women\u2019s Street Championship,\u201d said Tim McFerran, CEO of World Skateboarding Grand Prix, the event company that runs the KDC contest. \u201cWe felt we couldn\u2019t have a true world championship event without including a women\u2019s contest. It\u2019s going to be an incredible contest and one we feel is especially important in South Africa, where there are so many girls who have taken up skateboarding and who need just as many, if not more, opportunities than boys. For them to see women competing at such a high level, we hope will serve to further encourage and inspire girls across South Africa and around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Official 2014 KDC events are:<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s Street World Championships (won in 2013 by Nyjah Huston, winner takes home a $100,000 cash prize)
\nMen\u2019s Vert World Championships (Andy Macdonald holds the current title, winner gets $60,000)
\nBest Trick Contest (2013 saw 13-year-old Jagger Eaton make a huge impression with a 360 flip over the gap)
\nNEW FOR 2014: The Women\u2019s Street World Championships (winner takes home $15,000 cash)
\nSouth African Street Championships (2013 winner Braxton Haine)
\nRider Cup Team Skateboarding Championships (the winning US team from the upcoming Rider Cup summer contest in New York\u2019s five boroughs will earn a spot to compete alongside qualifying teams from across South Africa in this unique team-format contest)<\/p>\n
With the addition of the women\u2019s contest, the 2014 KDC total event prize purse grows to well over $500,000.<\/p>\n
In addition to spending time in Kimberley, where the contest is held, the KDC invited skaters will also get to experience the Northern Cape Province\u2019s \u201cDiamond Karoo\u201d with trips to the Big Hole, some of the oldest pubs in South Africa, going on a Ghost Trail and quad-biking in nearby nature reserves. The Northern Cape is famous for its diamonds, Namaqualand wild flowers, star-gazing, the Orange and Vaal rivers, indigenous cultures and no less than three deserts \u2013 the Kalahari, Richtersveld and Karoo. The province boasts six national parks of which two share borders with Namibia and Botswana. As such it offers its visitors a once in a lifetime adventure and safari experience.<\/p>\n
John Block, member of the executive council for finance, economic development and tourism in the Northern Cape government, welcomed the return of the Kimberley Diamond Cup and its program of more than 150 events on the annual calendar. \u201cFive thousand skateboards given away, building five skateparks in the province, all the coaching and competitions where money and skate gear are up for grabs, as well as opportunities in event management, photography, blogging and volunteering changed the lives of many young people in the Northern Cape for the better, not to mention that we have welcomed thousands of skate tourists in Kimberley,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Skateboarding for Hope
\nIn addition to the Grand Slam events, Skateboarding for Hope presented by Boogaloos is a community outreach initiative sponsored in part by the Northern Cape Provincial Government, which takes place all summer (winter in Africa) building up to the KDC World Championships in October. The 2014 Skateboarding for Hope stops include Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kimberley, Bloemfontein, De Aar, Soweto, Upington, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Springbok, and George, as well as the Northern Cape rural towns of Kuruman, De Aar and Kathu. Each stop will feature skate clinics, skateboard giveaways, as well as an amateur contest giving skaters the chance to earn a wild card entry into the South African World Championships at the KDC event.<\/p>\n
Grand Slams
\nCompetitors can earn spots in the South African Championships at KDC by winning regional \u201cGrand Slam\u201d contests for both teams and individual skaters, coming to cities across the Northern Cape in the coming months. For a full schedule of Grand Slam events, visitwww.kimberleydiamondcup.com. These grand slams, together with the Skateboard for Hope stops, cover the whole country of South Africa with 20 contests throughout each year, probably the most extensive and fairest way to create a nationwide talent search to insure that not only that everyone gets a shot at entering the world championships but it is a formalized way to determine a nationwide ranking system.<\/p>\n
About Kimberley Diamond Cup
\nThe annual Kimberley Diamond Cup World Skateboarding Championships are a partnership between South Africa\u2019s\u00a0 Northern Cape Provincial Government, World Skateboarding Grand Prix, and Kumba Iron Ore. Located 300 miles southwest of Johannesburg in the Northern Cape Province, Kimberley was the location of South Africa\u2019s first diamond mine, thus its nickname, \u201cThe Diamond City.\u201d For the latest news and information, visit www.kimberleydiamondcup.com or follow KDC on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.<\/p>\n
About World Skateboarding Grand Prix (WSGP)
\nWorld Skateboarding Grand Prix is a skateboarding event management company based in Sacramento, California. WSGP hosts world-class skateboarding events globally with a commitment to help stimulate local economies through tourism and support youth development, especially those in underserved or impoverished communities, through skate clinics, demos, pro tours and more. For the latest news and information on the 2014 Kimberley Diamond Cup and other upcoming World Skateboarding Grand Prix events, visit WorldSkateboarding.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kimberley Diamond Cup World Skateboarding Championships Return October 2-5: Organizer WSGP Expands Event to Include Women\u2019s Street Championships Press Release: (Sacramento, Calif. \u2013 June 11, 2014) \u2013 World Skateboarding Grand Prix (WSGP) today announced the dates for the 2014 Kimberley Diamond Cup World Skateboarding Championships (KDC) as well as the addition of the Women\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4041],"tags":[13901,14262],"class_list":["post-43387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-skate-2","tag-kimberley-diamond-cup-world-skateboarding-championships","tag-skate"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/image002.png","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43389,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43387\/revisions\/43389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}