Skateboarders converged on Parsons on Saturday for the Parsons Recreation Commission’s 17th annual Battle for the Cup at PKY Skate Park on Crawford Avenue.
Tom Walters of the Underground Skateshop in Joplin organized the event. He brought a special guest this year, Julia Brueckler, 35, a former Olympic street skateboarder who works for American Ramp Co. in Joplin. ARC designed the PKY Skate Park and received the contract to build the park in 2002.
Brueckler represented Austria in the 2020 Olympics, which actually took place in the summer of 2021 because of the pandemic. She was one of 20 competitors on the women’s side. Prior to the Olympic games, she was the 23rd ranked women’s street skater in the World Skateboarding Rankings. She represented Austria in the women’s street event and finished in 18th place.
“I didn’t do the greatest. I messed up my knee right before,” she said. The doctor told her she could go to the Olympics and not do so well or have surgery. After all the work she went through to qualify she decided to compete.
She said qualifying for the Olympics was a four-year process and included a number of contests around the globe. In the end, whoever had the highest rankings got to go.
She was world skateboarding champion in 2016 and 2017, she said. She was European champion seven years ago and also competed in a few X Games.
She started skateboarding when she was 12 and has been skating competitively for 20 years.
Brueckler said she loves skateboarding. She’s been working through injuries for the past two years and had several ankle surgeries.
“But the love never stops. You’re never going to stop skating,” Brueckler said.
Now, she designs skateboard parks for ARC. She’s designed over 100 parks, mostly recently she participated in the design for a park in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and a park in Manchester, Connecticut. She’s been designing parks for ARC about three years now.
“So I can use all my knowledge I’ve gathered over 20 years of skating and traveling the world to hopefully build some cool parks for people,” she said.
Designers work with local officials to build the best park
See PKY, Page 10.
they can have.
“Everybody’s perfect skate park, you could ask every single person here and it would be different. It’s always a challenge,” she said.
The design process takes a lot of local input relating to budgets and space issues.
She landed in Joplin after attending a community engagement event in Texas where ARC was going to build a park in a nearby town. Nathan Bemo of ARC asked her to come work for him.
She said in her design career, she’s created parks for California and East Coast towns as well, many in areas that have 20 parks in a 20-mile radius.
“It’s cool to design parks there,” but she said she really loves working with smaller towns.
“It’s not going to be a $5 million skate park, but even a $100,000 can make a huge difference for kids. So I feel this is where we can make the biggest impact, smaller towns.”
Results
Austin “Krooks” Clay won the Battle for the Cup again this year. Parsonian Eric Huebner had the best trick for a front side 50-50 to a lip slide. Clay said his best trick in the competition was a 360 flip over the pyramid structure in the park.
WINNERS: Beginners
First, Jake Valvis.
Second, Owen Imhoff. Third, Tino Ruiz.
Intermediate
First, Edward Shields.
Second, Landon Newcomb. Third, Perry Ramsey.
Fourth, James Groff.
Fifth, Trevor Roemer.
Girls
First, Aubree Walters.
Second, Piper Blair.
Third, Brynn Walters.
Advanced
First, Austin “Krooks” Clay. Second, Toby Pierce.
Third, Eric Huebner.
Fourth, Dylan Casteel.
Fifth, Zach Correll.
Tom Walters and Jacob Grotheer got honorable mentions.
