What an event and turnout we had last weekend during the United Through Urban Sports Festival at Pretty Bay in Birzebugga. This event brought together the community of various urban sports as Parkour, BMX, Scooter, Skateboard, Street Workout, and Break Dancing enthusiast took part in either the tryouts or competitions that took place over the weekend. The festival was open for all backgrounds, levels and ages, beginner to advanced and saw over 160 participants register.
Friday saw the opening of the festival where all the participants had a chance to train on the courses on their respective sports, Saturday followed with BMX,Skateboarding and Scooter Competitions at the Skatepark. Parkour, Street Workout and 3×3 Basket Tryouts took place in the basket ball court area. The competitions in the skatepark was surely a crowd pleaser as many visitors stopped by to take a look at the show taking place during the competitions.
Her excellency Marie Louise Collerio, who through the Malta Trust Foundation helped not only construct the skatepark a few years ago but also covered the costs for the new graffiti at the skatepark for the event. Also came by to withness the show that was taking place, she was accompanied by Mayor Scott Camilleri from the Birzebugga Local Council and Youth Workers from Agenzija Zghazagh, of which both entities supported the festival. President Karl Naja also presented a appriciation plauge to each organisation as a token of our gratitude toward the great work they do towards street sport and youth empowerment.
BMX Competitions
Beginner Group BMX:
Best Trick Winner: Jacopo Cialdi
Best Run Winner: Angelo Buttigieg
Promising BMX Award: Joshua Micallef
Advanced Group BMX:
Best Trick Winner: David Aldana
Best Run Winner: Matthias Dettki
Promising BMX Award: Maksim Druchenko
Skateboarding Competitions
Beginners Group Skateboarding:
Best Trick Winner: George Golabovic
Best Run Winner: Jonathan Leander-Engström
Promising Skater Award: Pablo Hernandez Zarate
Advanced Group Skateboarding:
Best Run Winner: Lev Schembri
Best Trick Winner: Leon Attard
Up and Coming Skater Award: Fredrick Zammit
Scooter Competition
Best Trick Winner: Nelson Cassar
Best Run Winner: Nicholas Mclean Fiorini
Promising Scooter Award: Nicholas Mclean Fiorini
Promising BMX Rider Award BMX Advanced Best Run Winner BMX Advanced Best Trick Winner BMX Beginners Promising Rider Winner BMX Beginners Best Run Winner Advanced Skateboarding Promising Skater Winner Advanced Skateboarding Best Trick Winner Advanced Skateboarding Best Run Winner Beginners Skateboarding Promising Skater Winner Beginners Skateboarding Best Trick Winner Beginners Skateboarding Best Run Winner Best Run and Promising Scooter award Winner Scooter Best Trick Winner BMX Beginners Best Trick Winner
Sunday was the last day of the weekend where we saw competitions in Parkour and 3×3 Basket. For Parkour, this was the first official Parkour competition that took place in Malta and we are very proud to have organised these competitions with our partners Leap Squad from Malta and HOP from Hungary. The competitions that took place where Parkour Speed Beginners, Parkour Speed Advanced and Parkour Freestyle and here are the results:
Parkour
Parkour Speed Beginners:
1st: Nathan Micallef Ellul
2nd: Ashton Sammut
Parkour Speed Advanced:
1st: Nathaniel Camilleri
2nd: Daniel Caruana Mansueto
3rd: Ado Meszaros
Parkour Freestyle:
1st: Adam Liptak
2nd: Nathaniel Camilleri
3rd: Ado Meszaros
3×3 Basketball
Hibernians basketball Team
Parkour Freestyle Winner Parkour Speed Advanced Winners Parkour Speed Beginners Winners 3s3 Basketball Winners
We were happy to also see the festival welcomed by all those who passed by on the Birzebugga Promenade and we had many people stop to see the event unfold over the weekend, which makes us extremely happy to see the local commuinity come together trough urban sports.
We would like to firstly thank the prize sponsors for all the competitions Urban Jungle, Billabong Malta, Quiksilver Malta, Behind Bars Bike Shop, Centrano Distribution, Colony BMX, KFD Skate, Fiction BMX, Division BMX, CORE Action Sports, Island_skateboarding. Secondly, we would like to also thank her excellency Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca and her team from the The Malta Trust Foundation, Scott Camilleri and his team from the Kunsill Lokali Birzebbuga and the youth workers from Aġenzija Żgħażagħ, together with our other local partners MSA – Malta Skateboarding Association for helping us with the skatepark activities, LEAP SQUAD – Malta Parkour & Freerunning for taking care of the parkour with Hall of Parkour Hungary – HOP. We would like to also thank the crew behind Elementi and Street Elements Hiphop Artists for putting on a great show in the hip hop area. big thanks to Jahh Roland and Milan Diss Spin for taking care of the amazing tunes, C0ok3r for the awesome uum backdrop and graffiti at the skatepark and finally all our partners and their volunteers from the UUM – United Through Urban Movement project for making this all possible. Budapest Association for International Sports, Hall of Parkour Hungary – HOP, LEAP Sports Scotland, Sport Evolution Alliance.