![\"Justin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SAC_371_XGames_HA_260626.JPG\" "\\"Justin")
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Justin Dowell competes in the BMX Park competition during the MoonPay X Games on Friday, June 26, 2026. Dowell became the underdog winner of the event.<\/p>\n
HECTOR AMEZCUA<\/p>\n
hamezcua@sacbee.com<\/p>\n
Long before the X Games trucks rolled into town for three days of competition concluding Sunday<\/a>, Sacramento\u2019s skaters were carving their own legends \u2014 down Stoker Hill in Old Sacramento, across K Street, and in every do-it-yourself spot claimed with a board and a dream.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t just another stop for the X Games, an annual competition founded by ESPN and featuring elite athletes from across the world competing in skateboarding and other extreme sports. It\u2019s a homecoming of sorts.<\/p>\n The 31-year-old event<\/a> staged in Sacramento for the first time<\/a> is poetic given that the local skateboarding story is a blueprint for the entire sport \u2014 and now, the rest of the world gets to see why. Sac Town\u2019s skateboarding roots run deep, shaped by a mix of punk spirit, working-class grit, and a relentless drive to create something authentic.<\/p>\n Quite frankly, the X Games wouldn\u2019t be what they are without Sacramento\u2019s imprint. The city\u2019s skaters and innovators, especially the N-Men and Don Bostick,<\/a> helped define the contest formats that now set the standard for extreme sports. N-Men started as a crew of teenagers<\/a> skating in empty pools, becoming legendary in their community.<\/p>\n Bostick, an N-Men legend who lived in Sacramento as a young adult, didn\u2019t just skate the city\u2019s streets; he helped design the very format of the X Games, making Sacramento\u2019s influence foundational to the event itself.<\/p>\n Locals of every age, background, and creed walk the embankments known as Stoker Hill, which connects Old Sacramento to DOCO (Downtown Commons). Yet many people in Sacramento may not be aware that Sacramento is one of the birthplaces of Northern California\u2019s skateboarding movement.<\/p>\n This tradition is nearly a half-century and lives on as riders push their worn boards down K Street, leaving black marks in their wake, a tell that our roads have been used well. Skaters aren\u2019t donning shiny new Vans<\/a> shoes or Pacsun<\/a> clothing.<\/p>\n That legacy isn\u2019t nostalgia \u2014 it\u2019s what modern skateboarding aspires to be. When you see the X Games staged here, you\u2019re seeing the roots of creativity, inclusion that shaped what skateboarding is today.<\/p>\n Just kids who loved to skate<\/p>\n
![\"N-Men](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20130813_PK_NMEN_0403.JPG\" "\\"20130813_PK_NMEN_0403.JPG\\"")
N-Men member Steve “Steve-O” Brockway, 52, skates in the peanut bowl at the Granite Skateboard Park on Aug. 13, 2013, in Sacramento. The N-Men are Sacramento’s longest-running skateboard crew with many members in their forties to fifties. Paul Kitagaki Jr. Sacramento Bee file <\/p>\n