International Skaters Hung Out With The St. Petersburg Skateboard Community Thursday

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Four internationally known skaters made a stop in St. Petersburg at Anchor Skate Supply on the Red Bull Drop-In with Jamie Foy and Friends tour.

Many skaters from the Tampa Bay area and beyond brought their skateboards and skated on the Red Bull ramps under Interstate 175 near Fifth Avenue South from 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The Red Bull skate team — Jaimie Foy, Felipe Gustavo, Zion Wright and Alex Sorgente — created a prize-winning skate competition with the winner from each round receiving cash.

Foy and Wright participated as judges.

"This is our third stop on the tour, and every stop has been as great as the last," Foy, a Deerfield Beach native and champion skater, told a Patch reporter. "So many showing up, and hanging out having a good time with us. I'm stoked just to see a lot of people I grew up with...and come with some homies that have never been here before and just show them around."

The team's Florida tour included Miami, Deerfield Beach, Tarpon Springs, St. Petersburg and Orlando. They wrapped up the tour Saturday.

The skate world knows Foy, 25, for being the master of the frontside crooked grind. He started to become well-known in about 2015 by winning many contests doing his signature trick. He started skating at about three years old and won his first competition in Florida at four.

Just as Foy began skating as a child so did some St. Pete residents who have been in the skate scene for a while such as 24-year-old Christian Frank who has been skating for 18 years.

"I started really young, and it's just something different," Frank told Patch. "It was kind of like being an outcast because people looked down on it but it's been around for a while in this area (St. Pete), so we have a good skate scene here. There's a way to teach stuff to do things differently than the regular world. In skating, you don't give up. You fail a lot but you keep trying."

Skaters formed a long line outside Anchor Skate as the skate team autographed skateboards and posters.

Wright, a 23-year-old Jupiter native, made the U.S. Olympics Skate Team in 2020. He began skating at the age of four.

Gustavo, 30, a native of Brazil started skating at age 7.

"I've been living in the U.S. for about 15 years now," Gustavo said to Patch. "We tour all over the world, all over the U.S., and we've been to Tampa and Miami a couple of times but never St. Pete. It's pretty cool here–a different crowd. We've had an awesome day. Just glad to be here showing some love to the local skate shop and to the St. Pete community."

Alex Sorgente, 25, a native of Lake Worth who grew up in Florida and Italy, was also on the tour. He made his first pro win in Newcastle, Australia at the Pro Australian Bowl Championships in 2013, according to Red Bull.

The Boardr, headquartered in Tampa, helped facilitate this event for Redbull.

"This is exciting and huge for the kids who are at this skate event at Anchor," Ryan Clements, founder of The Boardr, told Patch. "There are probably some here who have never seen a pro skateboarder in their life until today. I'm glad along with Red Bull we could help make this happen for them."