In Depth: Chaz Sands

It’s a good timing that Be-Mag sat down with Chaz to look back onto his blading career. I thought that I know Chaz quite well. But apparently I can’t know everything. The Glasgow native gives an honest, personal and in depth retrospective view on his life as a rollerblader, special happenings, personal achievements, tour life etc. This man has even more to tell and show than I thought.

Introduction by Sven Boekhorst
Photos and captions by Chaz Sands

A younger me here on a boat trip with my Dad and my Grandfather in Loch Lomond, I spent most weekends doing outdoor activities like camping, hunting and hill walking when I was young and still try to find time to do it now with my friends when the weather is good.

Camping in Loch Goilhead – Scotland.

2006 RFCC USA VS REST OF THE WORLD CONTEST

Soyal-allyoop topsoul – fullcab royal

This was pretty much the first day I started skating for Razors and I was competing in the RFCC “Game of S.K.A.T.E” here. Frankie Morales had set the trick second try for the USA side and I was appointed to match it, I was very nervous as I was recovering from a bad ligament tare in my right ankle and couldn’t do soyals that well but managed to nail the switchup first try to my surprise and gain the point against USA team.

Me and teammate Stefan Horngacher (my brother from another mother). This picture was taken on the last day of touring through Salzburg (Austria), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Zagreb (Croatia), Budapest (Hungary) Bratislava (Slovakia) and last stops Prague (Czech Republic)

LG Paris stop 2008, funny story here is that the day before was qualifiers and I had just managed to qualify in tenth place while Haffey was sitting in first and the weather forecast for the next day for finals was to rain so the judges would have went with the scores from Qualifications so obviously Haffey was doing a rain dance all night but he must not have danced enough because the rain held off and I managed to put together a good enough run to sneak into first place. Here Haffey found it amusing to take apart a lighter and zap me with it while on the podium.

Greaves sports shops in Glasgow did a promotion with Salomon for the release of my pro skates, in this store they have a quite a large picture of me in the skate section.

As well as skating, over the years I’ve found another passion for being behind the camera, filming, editing and taking photographs. Photography is what I studied at college, but when I left school I took more of an interest towards filming. These are pictures taken from filming the Ground Control DVD in San Diego, checking up on a timelapse at Hoover Dam and looking over footage from that days filming in Barcelona.

These are a few photographs from an interview I did with Unity magazine, which I am quite sad to say has stopped printing, this issue I am rather fond of as I had a cover shot and interview and was the last print of Unity Magazine. Shots by Adam Kola.

2005 BHC first UK Tour all the boys gathering together here for the last stop of the UK tour.

2008 RFCC Awards San Diego, after being gratefully nominated in previous years here I was proudly awarded by Nick Wood RFCC International skater of the year 2008 

Chilling out in the media room after warm ups at the Chaz Sands Invitational 2009.

This is where I am found most days, there is nothing better than being at this skatepark there is never a dull day when hanging around here. And when the sun does decide to make an appearance we all climb up on the roof and take in the views with some beers.

“540 That grab” over the big hip in hall 2 of the unit 23 skatepark shot taken by David Andrew.

Most of if not all the trips that we go on end in a party, this was taken on New Years eve 2010 during the filming of the Ground Control DVD at a random house in San Diego we all got invited to which was more like a nightclub it was sooo big.

One thing I will say about skating is that it creates the opportunity to meet some truly magnificent people; here I am with a very special person in my life Jenna Downing, one of my oldest and best friends we have been through a lot and had some amazing experiences along the way with the hope for many more! 

An unused pic from a photo shoot for an Addict clothing advert for the jacket shot by Adam Kola in 2008, 900 over the jump box in Birmingham UK Epic skatepark.

True spin top soyal at IMYTA Finals in Montreal Canada in 2005, I was close to not making it to this contest as I had missed my flight the day before due to bad weather conditions on the way to the airport, luckily enough I was able to rebook onto another flight and make it out to Canada for my first time.

Wallride to 180 at bones skatepark 2012 photo shot by Matt Dearden for Blading.info top 5 check it out here.

A lot of the time going on trips can result in spending a lot of time in Airports waiting on people or delays or some other kind of problem, this is me and Alex Burston posted at the airport in Barcelona waiting on other people arriving on a trip to get our sections completed for the GC DVD.