Bob Burnquist

Early life

Burnquist was born in Rio de Janeiro to an American father of Swedish descent and a Brazilian mother. He began his skateboarding training in his hometown of São Paulo at 11 years old, and turned professional at 14. He holds dual citizenship in Brazil and the United States.

Career

Bob Burnquist's specialties are in switch stance skateboarding, and in creating innovative vert tricks. Burnquist has always tried to find new ways to make his tricks more creative, and more difficult. Burnquist has a signature trick called the "One-footed Smith grind".

In 2000, Burnquist won the X Games' best trick contest, with his famous Fakie 5-0 with a fakie kickflip off of the grind bar.

Burnquist's biggest success to date came in the vert contest at the 2001 X Games. Prior to his final run (the last run of the event), Burnquist was sitting in second place behind two-time defending champion, Bucky Lasek. Burnquist produced a flawless run, including multiple tricks that had never been seen before and, as a result, were unnamed. During the run, commentator Tony Hawk went hoarse and nearly lost his voice while screaming in disbelief. Burnquist was rewarded with a score of 98 out of 100, the second highest score ever given in any X Games skateboarding event, behind only Bucky Lasek's score of a 98.50 the year before.

Burnquist won a gold medal in the 2005 X Games Best Trick vert contest, placing fourth in the Vert section, and sixth in the Big Air contest.

In 2006, Burnquist completed a BASE jump after attempting a 50-50 into the Grand Canyon. The first attempt nearly cost Burnquist his life after he missed the rail and fell out of control, before regaining himself and successfully deploying his parachute. After some adjustments to the take-off ramp, his second attempt went flawlessly. This stunt was shown in an episode of the television show Stunt Junkies.

Following his recruitment into the ranks of Plan B Skateboards, Ryan Sheckler successfully cleared a 55 feet (17 m) gap on Burnquist's Mega Ramp construction (a segmented ramp that typically consists of 50 feet (15 m), 60 feet (18 m), or 70 feet (21 m)-foot gaps, and a 27 feet (8.2 m)-tall "quarterpipe" ramp) in April 2008, with Danny Way also in attendance.

At the 2013 X Games in Barcelona, Burnquist achieved two more feats: the first was becoming the first skater to ever win gold on four consecutive occasions in Skateboard Big Air (2011-2012 in Los Angeles, 2013 Foz do Iguaçu, 2013 Barcelona being his prior victories). The second, was tying BMX legend, Dave Mirra, as the athlete with the most career X Games medals, with 24. In the 2013 X Games in Munich, Burnquist continued to make history by winning another gold medal in Skateboard Big Air, thus extending his win streak in the event to 5 consecutive years - another new record, and making him the sole owner of the record for most career X Games medals in history, with 25.

Burnquist has appeared in every X Games, winning 26 medals in 52 events.

During day 2 of the 2015 X Games Austin, Burnquist went on to win the gold medal in Skateboard Big Air, while sustaining a non-displaced fracture of his left forearm which he suffered during training on the week of the competition. On Day 3, Burnquist won another gold medal in Big Air Doubles, in its very first appearance in X Games. His partner was BMX rider Morgan Wade as they scored a total of 90 points (43 from Morgan, 47 from Burnquist). With this results Burnquist won the total of 29 X Games medals, which 14 of them are gold.

Media

In 1994, Burnquist appeared in a short clip talking about the effects of gravity on the second episode (aptly titled "Gravity") of the first season of "Bill Nye, the Science Guy."

Burnquist has been featured in the hit video game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and appeared in all of its main sequels up to Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, with the exception of Pro Skater 3, due to license restrictions as a result of his appearing in another skating game, ESPN X Games Skateboarding, during that time.

In 2004, Burnquist made a guest appearance as himself on the popular TV series, Kim Possible. Burnquist was also featured in a commercial for Aero chocolate bars. He also made a brief cameo in the skateboarding movie Grind.

In 2013, Burnquist appeared as himself on Season 2 Episode 4 of Stan Lee's SuperHumans.

Personal life

Burnquist formerly lived with professional skateboarder Jen O'Brien, and their daughter Lotus. He then relocated to a residence with Veronica Nachard and their daughter Jasmyn (born 2007) in Vista, California, United States (US), where he has a world-renowned vert ramp in his backyard. This ramp has been skated by dozens of famous skateboarders, including Colin McKay, Tony Hawk, Rune Glifberg, Bucky Lasek, and Lincoln Ueda, and has been featured in hundreds of magazines and videos, including Tony Hawk's Trick Tips and Thrasher Magazine. Burnquist's latest addition to his backyard skate-park is one of the world's few permanent Mega Ramps. His backyard also includes a full pipe and the worlds only corkscrew.

He had also started the Bob Burnquist Foundation to bring knowledge about organic farming and gardening to schools, and was one of the founders of the Action Sports Environmental Coalition, a nonprofit organization that brings ecological awareness to skateboarders, surfers and BMXers. In an interview in 2010, Burnquist stated, "Well, the latest is that we're working with a restaurant chain called the Chipotle Grill- they've got good values, trying to make food with integrity- and I'm starting an organic garden that they've committed to studying and seeing what they can use in their own kitchens."

Filmography