Only Woody could tell you why Zoetermeer is the worst city in Holland, but many Dutch skaters know it as home to one of the gnarliest spots in the country! Last year, the first “Destroy the Spot” event began with a session organized by Mathijs Tromp in Arnhem. On 22.04.2019, Easter Monday, Destroy the Spot returned to a new location in a suburb of The Hague - Zoetermeer. The crème de la crème of the Dutch skate scene was in attendance and even legend Tim Zom. When I first arrived off the train around 2pm, the event was about to begin at a manual/ledge spot. Even then, several bangers had already gone down and Mathijs had begun handing out some goodies for tricks.
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Titus "Destroy the spot"
Water, blood and bangers in Zoetermeer
The first “real” spot was a low-to-high ledge which truly separated the men from the boys. Up to then, the spot hadn’t even been skated and there was a mounted bench right by the landing. This certainly didn’t stop either of the two Maatmanns and several others from leaving the first grind marks on the spot. Some Euro bills were distributed amongst the rippers and thanks to a (seemingly cold-resistant) kid, boards that fell into the nearby water were quickly recovered.
After about a 30-minute session, the skaters were ready for another, bigger spot. This led us to a handrail on the other side of the fountain near the previous spot. This spot only confirmed the thought I had when I first saw these guys skating the low-to-high ledge – Dutch skaters have seriously big balls when it comes to gnarly spots! While some elite German “contest” skaters might have complained about bumps, cracks, or lack of run-out, the Dutch didn’t seem to give a single f*ck and charged the round rail. Rob Maatmann finished with 6 different tricks and his brother Jelle landed THE trick of the spot with an insane pole-jam to 50-50. Another half-hour later, the rail was indeed “destroyed” and after a short break, we headed to the final spot. The last spot was set to be the iconic “over the rail into the bank” spot known from Brandon Westgate’s famous 360 flip Emerica Ad.
It’s a good thing this rail/bank spot was chosen for last because you must be seriously hyped up to skate something so gnarly! What can look like a relatively mellow bank in photos is completely different when you’re standing at the top. Simply every trick here is insane and only 6 guys have the honor of claiming tricks at the spot. Jelle’s half-cab into the bank was one of the sickest tricks done here, but his brother Rob set new standards with a nosebonk, 50-50 pop-over, Switch front 180, and switch ollie. Woody proved that he doesn’t just talk the talk when it comes to skateboarding as he stomped a perfect hardflip into the bank. Xuly McCoy was finally the “last man standing” and he gave everything to catch a 360 flip into the bank. This unfortunately resulted in a broken collarbone, but looking at the photo sequence, you’ll see he was damn close!
The second “Destroy the Spot” event was just as awesome as the first one in Arnhem and there will definitely be more to events come! To the “Youtube kids” commenting that the tricks are “ABD”, just know that all the tricks were landed in a short “contest”, essentially making them all “NBD”! Plus, a tre flip over the rail/bank spot would still be super gnarly in 10 years!
