Rayssa Leal Takes First Place in the Women’s Skateboard Street | SLS San Diego 2024

The Champ is back on top! Monster Energy congratulates team rider Rayssa Leal on taking first place in the Women’s Skateboard Street in the SLS San Diego 2024 skateboarding competition. In the second stadium event of the 2024 SLS Championship Tour presented by Monster Energy as the official energy drink sponsor, the 16-year-old Olympic skateboarder from Imperatriz, Brazil, took the win in an international field.

In the highly competitive Men’s Skateboard Street final, 23-year-old Giovanni Vianna from Santo Andre, Brazil, took second place.

Contested inside Viejas Arena on the campus of San Diego State University (SDSU), SLS San Diego marked the second major stadium event on the 2024 SLS Championship Tour. It was also the first SLS competition in California since the SLS World Tour event in Los Angeles in 2019.

With a total of $1.8 million in prize money – including $100,000 each for SLS Super Crown Champions – the 2024 SLS Championship Tour offers the largest equal-gender purse in competitive skateboarding. After heading to Australia in October and Tokyo, Japan, in November, the season will conclude with the 2024 SLS Super Crown World Championships in Brazil from December 14-15.

Dedicated to showcasing the progression of street skating, SLS was started in 2010 by professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, with Monster Energy as a foundational partner.

Monster Energy’s Leal dropped into the Women’s Skateboard Street final as the reigning SLS Women’s Super Crown Champion. The 16-year-old from Brazil was also hungry for a win after finishing outside the podium in the recent SLS Apex 01 competition in Las Vegas. But California is lucky territory for Leal: In 2019, she entered her second career SLS competition at SLS Los Angeles 2019 and took the surprise victory at age 11. 

Cheered on by the high-energy crowd in San Diego, Leal put down a flawless run in the Line section: backside Smith grind the rail, kickflip the kicker, frontside ollie transfer into the quarterpipe, crooked grind up the bump ledge, frontside bluntslide transfer over the hip ledge, 360 kickflip the Euro Gap, and frontside nosegrind the rail earned her 7.7 points and an early lead.

When the action moved into Single Tricks attempts, Leal maintained her momentum by landing a backside tailslide the handrail for 7.8 points. On her second attempt, she raised the bar with a frontside bluntslide shove-it the handrail for 8.8 points. On her fourth attempt, Leal cemented her victory with a perfect kickflip frontside boardslide the handrail for 8.3 points, edging ahead of the rest of the field.

Taking her final attempt as a victory lap, Leal stoked the crowd by landing a technical kickflip backside lipslide the handrail for 9.0 points and a winning overall score of 33.9 points. The Nine Club score for the final trick marks the highest score of Leal’s career.

“I’m happy! I was a little nervous, but now I’m happy. I have no words… I just want to say thank you, everyone, for supporting us,” said Monster Energy’s Leal upon taking the win at SLS San Diego 2024.

On the strength of this victory, Leal has won nine of the past thirteen SLS competitions. In 2021, she represented Brazil in the Tokyo Olympics and earned the silver medal in Women’s Skateboard Street.

Also rising to the podium, 23-year-old Giovanni Vianna from Santo Andre, Brazil, took second place in the Men’s Skateboard Street final. Vianna dropped into the final as a top competitor and reigning SLS Super Crown Champion.

Starting in the Line section, Vianna put together gap-out to backside Smith grind the kink ledge, frontside lipslide and frontside tailslide the flat bar, frontside nosegrind revert up the bump ledge, heelflip the Euro Gap, and Half Cab bluntslide the handrail for 6.7 points.

Moving into Single Tricks, Vianna upped the ante with a flawless Caballerial frontside bluntslide fakie the handrail for a Nine Club score of 9.1 points. Maintaining his momentum, he landed a Caballerial frontside noseslide fakie the handrail for another Nine Club score of 9.0 points. But after missing the following two attempts, Vianna found himself out of podium contention at 24.8 points with only one more try in the contest.

No stranger to high-pressure situations, Vianna landed a controlled Caballerial backside tailslide fakie on his fifth and final attempt for 8.6 points. With an overall score of 33.4 points, the reigning SLS Super Crown champ took home a strong second-place finish at SLS San Diego 2024.

Next on the calendar, riders will battle for SLS Championship points in the SLS APEX 02 event on May 25, 2024. Stay tuned!