ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, September 7, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Three skateboarders from the UAE, Karim Nassar, Abdulaziz Talal and Marwan Alzarooni, competed in the skateboarding events at the 2026 BRICS Skate Cup, an international festival held in Ryazan, from August 27 to 30.

The event attracted 987 male and female sportsmen and women from 27 countries, including all BRICS member states, the UAE, Argentina, Bahrain, Kenya, Madagascar, Oman, Türkiye, Yemen and others. The programme featured competitions in skateboarding, inline skating and scootering. Skateboarder Matias Dell Olio, Paris 2024 Olympic finalist and 2024 world championship silver medallist, won gold medal.

The UAE's participation comes as skating sports continue to gain wider international recognition. Skateboarding's inclusion in the Olympic programme has added further importance to international competitions, particularly for athletes seeking to develop their abilities and compete against different schools and styles.

Karim Nassar said the BRICS Skate Cup was important because it gave skaters from the region access to a much wider international community. Skateboarding, he said, had always been about exchange, with different styles, cultures and generations meeting through one shared language. For skaters from the UAE, being present at an event of this scale created visibility, relationships and opportunities that extended far beyond the competition itself, while reinforcing the UAE skate scene’s growing place within the global skateboarding community.

Nassar, who has skated in Dubai for most of his life, said the sport had developed considerably in the UAE over the years. When he started, the community was much smaller, with far fewer spaces, resources and opportunities. Today, there is a new generation of talented skaters, better infrastructure, greater international attention and a stronger understanding of skateboarding as both a sport and a culture.

He said the UAE had the potential to become a regional hub for skateboarding, and that the next step was to continue creating opportunities for local skaters to compete internationally, build sustainable careers and form meaningful connections with the global skate community.

On a personal level, Nassar said the event had reminded him why he had remained connected to skateboarding for so long. Competition was one part of it, but what stayed with him were the people, conversations and friendships formed with skaters from different parts of the world.

He added that, at this stage in his career, participation was no longer only about what he could achieve personally. It was also about using those opportunities to create greater visibility, access and possibilities for the generation of skaters coming after him, both in the UAE and across the wider region.

Abdulaziz Talal said festivals such as the BRICS Skate Cup played an important role in bridging the gap between skateboarders who had grown up in street culture and people with no connection to it. He noted that an event of this kind allowed participants to reconnect with the street element of the sport and showed that skateboarding offered a path for development, with skaters going on to become photographers, producers and creative directors. He added that such festivals were especially important for the younger generation.

Skateboarders, he said, were driven by the desire to win and kept working even when progress on a single trick amounted to one per cent in a year.

Pavel Malkov, Governor of the Ryazan Region, said street sports attracted young people and expressed hope that the festival would inspire them to new achievements. He said the region was creating every opportunity for that and would host an international street sports event again next year.

Ilya Vdovin, President of Skate Russia, said the 2026 edition had brought together skateboarders, inline skaters and scooter riders from around the world, which he described as the festival's main result. Twice as many athletes had taken part as the organisers had planned for, he said, and the response online had run into thousands of posts and millions of impressions. He added that the visiting athletes would return to skateparks around the world with their own account of what Russia was really like.

Matias Dell Olio of Argentina, a Paris 2024 Olympic finalist and 2024 world championship silver medallist, described the BRICS Skate Cup as one of the best contests in the world.

Alena Georgobiani
Montfort Communications
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