Oualid Ben Salem

July 26, 2007 @ 2:31 PM

Hardflip revert on a famous hip. Ph: Deniau

Age: 31

Residency: Mulhouse, France

Sponsors: Slidebox skateshop

Everybody’s story has a similar start. Oualid found out about skateboarding, at age 14, when walking out of school he saw some “elder” do an ollie axle stall on a kerb. He seemed so dumbfounded that Gianni, the skater he still remembers well, tried to teach him ollies on the spot. Needless to say, Oualid needed a board, right after that. The local scene was booming and he was soon part of a fifty deep crew. Until he broke his arm on a gap attempt…by the time he was able to skate again, everybody had quit, and he eventually did too, out of loneliness. He concentrated more on his previous love, basketball, where he had to practice his bounce to compensate for his regular height. But soon, patellar tendonitis would deny him play. A friend gave him an old board, trying to get him back into the streets. Being 21 already, Oualid took months to finally give it a go. He felt too old. But, once he put those old wheels to the ground again, he never looked back. His tendonitis wasn’t too much of a problem for skateboarding, and eventually receded. Plus he could now apply his pop to limitless options, since switch and nollies that had been invented since he quit… once he got used to those thinner boards!

Oualid has been constantly progressing to this day, traveling and being a fixture you could see all around France. Always interested in learning the techest tricks and genuinely nice and friendly, he eventually befriended a rather lost Tom Penny that showed up in Mulhouse for a few years. Oualid eventually turned into a personal manager of sorts and both have been seen tagging along all over Europe for a while. Now Tom got his life together again, and Oualid is still pushing himself and loving it, wondering where the last ten years have gone…

And last time he organized a local contest, Tom showed up. This is what skateboarders do.