Unlocking the legend of Marseille's Bowl du Prado with Chris Gregson

Chris Gregson: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. It was a level. Then when I realised it was a real place it was like, “I have to go there!” I was probably ten years old. The bowl was the demo level. You outplayed [the original] Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and then there's a new one but the demo level was only Marseille.

So I played it more than any of the other levels in the game for that reason. I didn't end up going there until years later. It was for the first Red Bull contest [in 2016]. I’ve only ever been there for the contest so this will be my fourth time going.

That’s what made me realise it was a real place. I think 411 [video magazine] had a recap of Bowlriders [circa 2005]. It was the type of skating I like and everything looked pretty fun-sized. I grew up with Dylan Rieder so seeing him skate Marseille made me think I could too, because we skated similar stuff growing up in Orange County.

When you're younger I think you relate more to people your age. Dylan skating it and Tony Trujillo’s painted face is burned into my brain.

What's so important about that bowl is that between Burnside and Marseille, that's what created the [form of] park skating that became the Olympics, following on from the Vans Park Series. That design, shape and jam session style of the event was created there.

The likes of John Cardiel, Tony Trujillo and Wade Speyer weren’t contest skaters, but Jake Phelps [editor-in-chief of Thrasher Magazine, 1993 — 2018] brought them all to Marseille. In order to get them to actually skate the contest instead of doing runs, they put a group of homies in one heat. Ten minutes of doing whatever you want to is more appealing than a minute-long run.

The first Vans Park Series event replicated the Marseille Bowl and its jam sessions. I feel like that was the younger generation’s first time experiencing that, but it all stemmed from the Quiksilver ‘Bowlriders’ events. To this day, Marseille is the most exciting contest to watch; seeing everyone going head-to-head and not having to land every trick.

When you skate a bowl, you're skating with your homies. It's a session. Not that street skaters don't do that, but street skating is more about going to a spot and battling a trick that you want to do. But when we go on transition trips we show up to a bowl, session it and figure out what works. Everyone feeds off of each other. It’s a different vibe. That translates into the contest.

Skaters go to a bowl and they fire each other up, whereas for street contests it's them in their own element, in their own world. They are feeding off each other to push each other to go harder, but it's not the same as the energy being condensed into this one space.

Street skating is complicated and technical, you really have to understand what you're watching to understand it. Vert skating is almost like street skating in that respect. Watching vert runs, even I can't keep up sometimes. There’s so much going on. Whereas bowl skating is about the speed, the gaps, the airs and it's not as hard to comprehend. For people that don't skate, I think it's way more entertaining. Anyone wants to see the guy in the sky.

From what I’ve gathered, it was the first skatepark built with a park bowl. Everything else was replicating a backyard pool or an almost BMX-looking street course with vert walls and big pyramids. Marseille is this hybrid where you can pump corners to this huge hip, go into a deep end and go back out, hit the spine; I don't think anything before it was designed like that.

I think that's why Tony [Hawk] made it a level in the game, because the layout was so special. Now, every skatepark has a park-style bowl with a bunch of features and it all flows. But Marseille was designed to be a bowl that had all these elements and I think that's why it stood apart from everything else. That layout pushed skating in so many different ways.

That hip is like the most iconic hip in the world. You look at every Olympic course and there's a 30 degree hip and it's because of that hip. The size, mellowness and the perfect double pump into it means that you can go as fast as you want to that thing and soar to the sky. That shape and obstacles within that bowl has created so many iconic moments that couldn’t happen anywhere else. I think that has made people want to try and put their mark on this epic park.

This is probably the first year I'm not skating in the comp. In 2024, I did both. I just skated and filmed. But, I mean, I’ll probably skate [laughs]. What's sick about this contest is that heats aren’t put together based on trying to hurt each other’s chances, keeping it to its roots. Hopefully it's the likes of me, Tom [Schaar] and Greyson [Fletcher] in a heat together.

We can navigate each other and we all know each other’s skating. I can follow Greyson and if he messes up or goes a certain way, I have a pretty good gauge of what he's going to do. It’s the same for Tom and vice versa for them with me. Which makes it fun and exciting. You’re skating in the bowl with your friends.

I try to mimic their line. Where they pump, I pump. It gets a little tricky if I’m goofy and someone is regular, if they're going backside and I’m going frontside. I try to do what they do. In a way it comes back to the jam session format for a contest. That’s what you do in a jam session.

If you get stuck behind someone you just follow them, because if you try to veer off of their line then you're going to collide with each other. It’s very similar with follow-filming. I don't want to do anything too different from what the person I'm filming is because there’s room for error there. But if I do exactly what they do then ideally it should all work out.

I have more fun watching the women's contest than the men’s most of the time. The women's progression is so fast. It’s like every time I go to a contest women are learning new tricks every week to up their next ‘Best Trick’ event. It keeps it surprising, shocking and really cool.

It's funny. Marseille is pretty crusty and a lot of contest skaters in general are used to these perfect Olympic bowls built by California Skate Parks. I enjoy watching skaters struggle a little bit because they’re pushing themself. They figure it out and adapt to these things. Yurin [Fujii] was doing a McTwist in the deep end [at Bowl Rippers in 2023] and she was the first girl to do that, for sure.

It's sick to see women making their mark on Marseille. For so long it was “This dude did that here,” and now you're like, “She did that here.” They’re all in the equation, which goes to show how gnarly they are. A lot of the guys who get invited to Marseille have skated in the Vans Park Series, so they’re somewhat familiar with the jam format. I get the impression that for the girls it's a newer feeling than it is for the guys, in a contest, but that’s going to push progression.

When you don't have to land your run every time then you’re going to push it. You could do two insane tricks and still win. That's why I feel like this contest is so important to stick to the roots of how it was. We wouldn't have had Cardiel’s 360 and so many of these iconic moments if it wasn't for that jam style format. To see the women get a piece of that pie is pretty sick.