VQS Practice Photos and Highlights | Rockstar Energy Open 2025
The top men and women from this year’s Rockstar Energy Open Video Qualifier Series (VQS) had the first practice of the day on Thursday, breaking in the Street course at Portland’s Waterfront Park.
Words by Colin Bane
Photos by Taylor Ballard
Ryan Carrell
The VQS skaters are putting the “Open” in Rockstar Energy Open for the second year in a row, earning their way to compete on site via a fan voting system for their online clips. The top 4 men from the VQS round will advance to Saturday’s Semifinal to face off against the pros, and the top 3 women from the VQS round will advance straight to Saturday’s Final.
Taylor Burnett
“The opportunity to get into this weekend through the VQS makes me feel like I've earned it and that I deserve to be here like everybody else,” says Kylie Frank, who earned her way in for the second year in a row (she finished 3rd in the on-site VQS qualifier in 2024, and 10th in the Final.
Get ready for some new faces, too, including Japanese skaters Yuri Ashizawa (age 14), Aoi Fukuda (15), and Niko Sugimoto (16). And one Japanese-American, 13-year-old Juri Iikura, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
“I'm really glad that the fans voted for me for this, because I usually don't get to go to these kinds of big contests,” says Iikura. “I'm really excited for something new, and can't wait to skate with the skaters I look up to, especially Coco Yoshizawa, who inspired me when she won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.”
On the men’s side, VQS practice standouts included Ryan Carrell, Keenan Lewis, Nels "Gnarls" Rosen, and 11-year-old Wyatt Hammond, the youngest skater competing in Portland this weekend.
“This is my first pro-level contest, and I want to show up and show out,” Hammond says. “I don't want to be known as the youngest kid here. I want to be known as the skater that was young and did really well at his first pro contest.”
Hammond’s hard flip backside lipslide on the biggest rail on the course was an absolute highlight of Thursday’s practice sessions.
