The Red Bulletin US 10+11/23

THE CHAMPION

CAROLINE MARKS AND HER AMAZING JOURNEY TO A WORLD TITLE SUBSCRIBE

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EDITOR’S NOTE THE DRIVE TO THRIVE

Ask any true champion—a huge part of achieving greatness is managing minor disappointments. No one understands this better than pro surfer Caroline Marks, who graces our cover. Still only 21, Marks completely stepped away from competition last year to deal with some medical and personal issues—and then came back after this reset with renewed passion and the best season of her career. This issue is full of people who found greatness through adversity.

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

There’s a profile of dancer Sean Lew, an all-around dance phenom who overcame his fear of battling to become the U.S. champion of Red Bull Dance Your Style. There’s an unconventional narrative, presented in manga style, of pro gamer and streamer Timmy An—better known to his fans as @iiTzTimmy—who pushed through self-doubt before achieving his dreams. And there’s power forward Pascal Siakam, who somehow found his way from Cameroon to the NBA All-Star Game. All of these stories underscore that to be the very best at something, you need more than talent and good luck—you need the grit and positivity.

KAI JIANG

Jiang, who creates artwork under the moniker Lazypunch, invested a couple months of intermittent labor into our manga biography of pro gamer Timmy An (aka @iiTzTimmy). The Chinese American illustrator and designer, based in Los Angeles, has worked across multiple properties for Warner Bros. Consumer Products, including Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts. But after she clocks out at work, she can be found indulgently drawing fan art. Page 69

MARÍA JOSÉ GOVEA

The Los Angeles–based photographer shot dancer Sean Lew for this issue. “I really enjoyed capturing Sean’s amazing talent, energy and personality,” says Govea, who started out as a DJ and picked up a camera to document the music scene around her. “Since then I’ve been lucky enough to work with people like Diplo, Skrillex, A-Track and Arcade Fire.” She has shot for brands like Goldfish, Planet Fitness and Liberty Mutual. Page 40

Flanked by photographer Steven Lippman, siblings and the production team, Caroline Marks concludes her cover shoot with a late-day surfing session in Ponce Inlet, Florida.

CONTENTS

FEATURES

26 Pure Grit

Caroline Marks loves surfing almost as much as she loves to win.

40

Taking the Leap

Dance phenom Sean Lew has turned his focus to conquering his fear of battling—all the way to the largest global stage.

52

Legends in the Making

Ahead of the 2023 League of Legends World Championship, we look back at one of the wildest matchups in esports history.

60

Forward Progression

Fans of Toronto Raptors power forward Pascal Siakam know he’s a star. Now it’s time for everyone else to grasp his talents.

69

The Jumpmaster Saga

In this special mini comic, we share the tale of Timmy An— aka iiTzTimmy—and his quest for gaming greatness.

77 F1 Guide: Fall Classics

With two grand prix races in the U.S. coming up, here’s our guide to the spectacles on tap in Austin and Las Vegas.

AMERICAN DREAM

“I’m here to win a world title and go to as many Olympics as possible and win a gold medal,” says 21-year-old surfer Caroline Marks.

APEX PREDATOR

From his epic streaming feats to skydiving with the Red Bull Air Force, we illustrate iiTzTimmy’s amazing story.

40 NEW STEPS

Dancer Sean Lew has many talents, but now he’s ready for the Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final.

THE DEPARTURE

Taking You to New Heights

11 The metalcore group Beartooth finds happiness

14 Martial artist Cesalina Gracie’s fighting spirit

16 Boat racing in Spain

18 Red Bull Rampage returns

20 Windsurfing in Greece

22 Designer Yannik Zamboni on his go-to spots in Zurich

24 Rapper-cum-mogul Nick Cannon’s top R&B tracks

GUIDE

Get it. Do it. See it.

83 Travel: Finding revelry in Las Vegas—day or night

86 Fitness tips from wakeboarder Meagan Ethell

90 Gear: Cool wooden accents

94 Anatomy of gear

96 The Red Bulletin worldwide

98 A little drop in Utah

ISRAEL, EXACTLY LIKE NOWHERE ELSE

Where adrenaline and history are joined together, and 4000-year-old cities set the scene for the future of technology. Here, the combination of ancient and modern is harmoniously blended.

fnd us at goisrael.com

POSITIVELY THRASHING

After years of making music fueled by angst, Beartooth fnds a new inspiration: happiness.

Beartooth frontman Caleb Shomo (center), with bandmates (l to r) Zach Houston, Oshie Bichar, Will Deely and Connor Denis.

Words NORA O’DONNELL

Blood-splattered walls, a decaying shack in an isolated landscape, and a man submerged in water, slowly descending into the abyss. These are just a handful of the visuals that have conveyed the years of depression and selfloathing of Caleb Shomo, the mastermind behind the metalcore band Beartooth. Over the course of four fulllength albums— Disgusting (2014), Aggressive (2016), Disease (2018), Below (2021)—Shomo has shared his torturous battle with mental health through soul-bearing lyrics that give validation to fans who are also struggling.

But with the October release of Beartooth’s fifth full-length album, The Surface, there’s a sea change on the horizon, and for anyone who’s already heard the band’s recent single, “Might Love Myself,” it’s a dramatic transformation to behold. In the video, a shirtless Shomo is proudly rocking a six-pack, and yes, he’s smiling, celebrating both a physical and mental transformation as he wails lines about self-love: Chemistry is changing

Emotions rearranging

I’m outta my cage

Breaking my spell

Think I might love myself.

Fresh off a summer tour throughout Europe and Australia, Shomo admits he was nervous about how fans might react to the brighter lyrics, even if the band’s signature sound still inspires a good head-thrashing. He needn’t have worried.

“It seems like people are happy for me,” the 30-year-old says from his home in Los Angeles. “As the world comes out of COVID, it just feels like a clear sign that we’re hungry

for something a bit healthier and being happy with what we’ve got, because we realize everything is finite.”

For Shomo, who moved to Los Angeles from Columbus, Ohio, near the end of last year, the change to a sunnier location has been a balm for his seasonal depression. Before the interview, Shomo spent his morning like a classic Southern Californian: meditating, going for an hourlong run and finishing with a dip in the pool. “It all feels like a dream,” Shomo says. “But sometimes I have to realize that I worked very hard to be living in this dream. I don’t want to take it for granted.”

Shomo has always been dedicated to his craft, but he really started putting in the work toward his mental and physical transformation during the height of the pandemic, in late 2020.

“I was at the bottom of the barrel when it came to my mental health,” he says. “I woke up one morning violently hungover, out of shape, not feeling good about myself.”

He texted a close friend who had faced similar struggles and asked for pointers. As Shomo worked on his physical health, he quickly began to see the connection between his body and his mind. He slowly dialed back his drinking and ultimately quit altogether. A week into his sobriety, he wrote “Riptide,” which became the first single on the new album.

“Being able to go out and get exercise in the sunshine, it’s completely changed my mental state,” Shomo says of his transformation and move to California. “Honestly, I just want to be able to do what I love, which is writing music and performing, to my peak capacity.”

That revitalized energy was on full display during the band’s summer tour. Even though Beartooth’s earlier material lays bare some of Shomo’s darkest moments and thoughts of suicide, the band doesn’t shy away from playing those songs for fans. Shomo wants to give them the opportunity to exorcise their demons in a supportive environment. “It’s rare that I’m living in those emotions while we’re playing the song,” Shomo says assuringly. “I’m focused on my performance as an entertainer and making everybody feel safe in a place where they can let go of their emotions and get that frustration out.”

Now when Beartooth performs songs from the new album, there’s a different reaction: joy. Shomo emphasizes that Beartooth has never been an angry or violent band but a cathartic one. But seeing smiles? That’s an uplifting change. “It’s been a shift from pure catharsis—releasing anger, frustration and pain—to a more empowering environment,” he says.

The final track on The Surface, “I Was Alive,” is an ode to the last conversation Shomo had with his grandfather, on his deathbed. Having lived a full life, his grandfather was at peace with death, and the song’s chorus serves as a moving epitaph: When I die/I’ll know I didn’t just live/I was alive!

Asked about his own future—what would a much older Caleb Shomo want on his tombstone?—the artist returns to the here and now.

“I think the most important thing is being present and giving everything I’ve got to be the best version of myself,” he says. “Honestly, I just want to work hard to be happy.”

“The most important thing is being present and giving everything I’ve got to be the best version of myself,” says Shomo, 30, who quit drinking a few years ago to work on his physical and mental health.

“WE’RE HUNGRY FOR SOMETHING HEALTHIER AND BEING HAPPY.”

Self-defense FIGHTING SPIRIT

Born into a legendary martial arts family, Cesalina Gracie is empowering women and girls to fnd the posture of a champion.

Millions have been inspired by the Gracie men, who invented a 20th-century martial art called Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) that swept the world. Gracie fighters not only founded the UFC but they’ve dominated in it. But what about the women?

Cesalina Gracie, the granddaughter of BJJ cocreator Carlos Gracie, has experienced a full arc within the sport, from living and breathing it as a kid to dropping it altogether. Then she met a young girl who helped her find true purpose in harnessing BJJ’s philosophy for everyday empowerment. Her target audience: women and girls as young as 2 and a half.

It’s about more than selfdefense. For young girls, it’s learning how to deal with bullies (or not become one yourself). For women, it’s about seeing our own value, facing down harassment at work or setting boundaries at home. This, Gracie realized, is the real value of jiu-jitsu: not forcing an opponent to submit but using your voice to state your own needs. Not winning in the ring but adopting the “posture of a champion.” Since 2018, the Brazilian has shared these ideas with thousands of women and girls, through both small classes in her current home of Los Angeles and larger workshops around the world. The Red Bulletin caught up with Gracie to discuss her work with BJJ and her summitting of Mount Everest, completed earlier this year despite zero mountaineering experience and a serious fear of heights.

the red bulletin: How was it growing up in such a famous martial arts family?

cesalina gracie: Jiu-jitsu is in my blood. We literally had mats in the living room, and I was the only girl on the mats. Those gifts I was learning and living and breathing were spectacular, but when you’re so deep into it, you get to a point where you think, “Did I choose this or did this life choose me? I need to figure it out on my own.” So at 17 I moved to London, got a job at a restaurant and didn’t step on the mats for four years.

You returned to the sport as a producer for the UFC—

that’s very different from teaching women and girls

I was getting a lot of opportunities after producing extreme sports and hosting the Rio Olympics. But I also had this small group of moms and girls saying they were [facing] so many issues—toxic relationships, disrespect at work, problems at school. One mom whose daughter was being bullied asked if I could teach her self-defense. I politely thanked her for the opportunity but said I don’t work with jiu-jitsu anymore. Then I met the girl and I was like, “What am I doing with my life? She’s this magical little being that needs tools to navigate this world.” Her life is going to look completely different if she has these tools or not. Anybody can produce a show, but [here] there was a bigger purpose. I opened a class for her and her friends and created a program for mothers and daughters. My life goal is to have this in every school in America.

Why women and girls?

There’s no one teaching a methodology that targets the situations we go through. The number of girls suffering bullying or harassment at school is huge. For women, there are statistics that 80 percent suffer sexual harassment. One-third experience domestic violence. One in five are raped. I was so protected in Brazil, I didn’t even realize what women and girls go through. When I moved to London, I was followed home from the

For Cesalina Gracie, the granddaughter of Brazilian jiujitsu co-creator Carlos Gracie, the sport is in her blood.

supermarket. Some guy tried to put me in his car. At closing time, a manager at the restaurant tried to block me from leaving. That was the time I used jiu-jitsu the most, when I understood its power.

Do you mean you had to actually fight these guys? No, I used verbal skills, distance management and posture. These tools are enough 99 percent of the time. People think jiu-jitsu is about learning to be a badass fighter. In my classes, I’m like, “You’re going to learn about posture today.” I have girls in class who are depressed, who have body issues, who are really struggling in life. We talk about inclusion, and how we can practice it more. We talk about compassion, courage. Then we go into movement. What if someone pushes you? What if somebody calls you stupid? We work on selfdefense and voice. A lot of jiu-jitsu schools are male dominated, but everything in my method is made for women.

How did someone who’s not a mountain climber decide to climb Everest?

After I met Nims [Purja, the mountaineer] on the set of a new interview series, he invited everyone to go skydiving. I’m afraid of heights, but I was the only one that did it. Then he sent an invitation to Everest. I always tell my students to embrace the spontaneity of the universe if it works in their lives. The heart of the champion is open. Was I scared? Absolutely. But the

only way to know if I’m operating at my highest level is to be challenged. Being scared is a feeling that helps us grow.

What was it like?

Not nearly as glamorous as people think! Your body’s being challenged on a whole new level. I fell in a crevasse. I got caught in two avalanches. You’re just there at nature’s mercy. It’s a constant mental battle of not letting yourself get affected by what’s surrounding you but connecting to what’s within you. But something happened when I was there— the mission got so much bigger in my heart. I wasn’t thinking just about my students; I started thinking about every single woman in my life—my

mom, my sister, my niece— about women that I haven’t met, women going through difficulties, women who would never have this opportunity. I was feeling this immense responsibility. Every step I took I felt like my purpose got bigger. So the journey was so much more fulfilling, so much better than I even thought it could be.

Maureen O’Hagan

Gracie (left) has created a jiu-jitsu program specifically for women and girls, where the lesson is about harnessing the sport’s philosophy for everyday empowerment.

“THE HEART OF THE CHAMPION IS OPEN. BEING SCARED HELPS US GROW.”

THE RACE IS ON Barcelona, Spain

One year. That’s how long there is to go before the 37th America’s Cup kicks off on October 12, 2024. But competition is already heating up. Here, two Alinghi Red Bull Racing AC40 boats train ahead of the first preliminary regatta, which took place in nearby Vilanova i la Geltrú in September. In November, the boats head to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for the second preregatta, followed by the final one next year— raced in the main event’s larger AC75 boats, on the waters off Barcelona, where the actual America’s Cup will take place. alinghiredbullracing.americascup.com

STYLE MAVEN Virgin, Utah

At Red Bull Rampage, the world’s best freeride mountain bikers perform feats so daring that it’s scary to watch, but when Utah native Jaxson Riddle flies, don’t blink. The 22-yearold wowed judges with his moto-inspired tricks, nabbing the Best Style Award again in 2022. “The style of riding I do most likely will never win, but that’s not why I’m there,” Riddle said. “I’m there to make memorable times with my homies.” Here’s to making more memories on October 13. redbull.com/rampage

THE FASTEST WAY TO PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE.

A lot of newer car enthusiasts find it difficult to know where to go to meet a community of likeminded people coming together around their builds. We get it. It can be daunting. By the age you can drive a car, walking up to strangers and asking “Can I be your friend?” is generally frowned upon, no matter what you drive.

Luckily, finding a club that fits you is easier than it seems. Many clubs are active on group social sites like Facebook or Reddit, and quite often they are hungry for new members excited to talk about what moves them. The only requirements for entry are showing up not stock and standing by your choices. Aftermarket tires, a spoiler, or a wrap are easy places to start. Car clubs are the rare form of community where what makes us different is what drives us together. Pretty soon, you’ll be surrounded by people who are just like you except totally different.

HIGH RISE Naxos, Greece

German-born Greek freestyle windsurfer Lennart Neubauer—shot here by Athensbased photographer Alex Grymanis—is a phenomenon in his sport, with championship titles across numerous age categories. For the Lennart Neubauer’s Wind Park project in 2021, he returned to the place where he learned his craft—Laguna Beach Park on the Greek island of Naxos—to ride custom-built kicker ramps and sliders on a specially reinforced board. And nothing could spoil the then 17-year-old’s fun—not ferocious winds or a torn sail on day two. That’s dedication for you. Watch Lennart Neubauer’s Wind Park at redbull.com.

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Urban adventure ZURICH INSIDER

Designer Yannik Zamboni, a local, shares his favorite spots.

It’s a sunny day in early spring, and Swiss fashion designer Yannik Zamboni, dressed in signature white, is sitting in Frau Gerolds Garten, a secluded modular city garden in Zurich’s industrial district. Here, beer and food are served out of repurposed shipping containers.

“I love coming here—you see a side of Zurich that isn’t well known,” says Zamboni. This is the first stop on the designer’s tour of the many places that inspire him in Switzerland’s largest city. “I fell in love with Zurich when I was 16 years old,” he says. “And nothing has changed.”

A lot else has changed in Zamboni’s life. Since winning Making the Cut—the Amazon Prime reality show created and

presented by supermodel Heidi Klum and fashion consultant Tim Gunn—last year, along with the sizable grand prize of $1 million, his career has been on a steep upward trajectory. But Zamboni hasn’t been tempted to leave the city he first discovered as a teen.

“I was always in Zurich, right from when I was young,” he says. Zamboni grew up in a village with a population of roughly 700 people, but he felt the pull of the more cosmopolitan Zurich (population: just under 500,000) early on in his life.

“In the Upper Basel area, where I come from, I missed queer representation,” he recalls. “And for me, as a queer kid, there was only anything

interesting [happening] in Zurich. I often felt different and lost, but in Zurich I found the tolerance and diversity I was looking for.”

For Zamboni, Zurich’s industrial district feels like home. The area that was once known for factories and shipbuilding is now a hive of creative activity—in the worlds of fashion, art, culture and cuisine. Zamboni namechecks the nearby Rote Fabrik, a vast red-brick former silk-weaving mill just a short walk away, which hosted concerts by music greats including Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the ’80s and ’90s and is an important cultural hub. Smaller design shops can be found here at Zurich’s Viadukt, a shopping street built into a railway viaduct—a center of innovation and diversity.

It all helps to feed Zamboni’s creativity. “[I get my inspiration] from sociopolitical themes,” the designer says. “Everything that I find unfair in our society drives me on.” He designs for people who feel different. “I don’t believe in a binary gender system,” he explains, which is why he has done away with gender classification and clothing sizes at his label, Maison Blanche.

But thanks to his success in the fashion world, Zamboni

Zamboni and filmmaker Anique Wild, modeling Maison Blanche at BIG POP.

“AS A QUEER KID, I OFTEN FELT DIFFERENT AND LOST, BUT IN ZURICH THERE WAS THE TOLERANCE AND DIVERSITY.”

Urban jungle: Frau Gerolds Garten is an oasis in Zurich’s industrial district.

must travel to a different part of the city to show off his own creations: Bahnhofstrasse, internationally renowned as one of the world’s most expensive and exclusive shopping streets. Zamboni makes the journey to his popup store, which sits inside BIG POP, a collection aiming to bring some nonconformity to an area characterized by established big-name boutiques, jewelry and watch shops and luxury hotels. “My store doesn’t fit in [this area of the city],” says Zamboni. “But I’m happy about it, because that’s how I get discovered by people who wouldn’t otherwise come across me.”

Now in the heart of Zurich, Zamboni heads to the Münsterbrücke (Minster Bridge), which crosses the Limmat River and offers striking views of the city and Lake Zurich. Then he continues on to the impressive sandstone exterior of the Kunsthaus Zurich museum on Heimplatz, situated amid narrow cobbled streets in the heart of the historic and picturesque Old Town.

Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland’s biggest art museum, houses one of the largest international collections by Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch, alongside works

Must-see places

1 BIG POP

A large store housing a selection of pop-up outlets for brands including Yannik Zamboni’s Maison Blanche. Bahnhofstrasse 73

2 Markthalle im Viadukt Secondhand and high fashion outside the mainstream. Viaduktstrasse

dating from the Middle Ages right up to present day, and in 2020 it received a new lightfilled extension designed by British architect David Chipperfield. Zamboni says that he visits as much for the architecture as for the art. “It’s such an impressive, beautiful place,” he says of the new building. “That space, those high walls!”

Having completed his tour of the city, Zamboni is eager to check out the water. “Let’s go down to the lake!” he shouts, already on his way to the northern shores of Lake Zurich, on which the city sits. Water is a big part of Zurich’s allure for the designer. “The water is so incredibly clean, you can see right to the bottom,” he says once he arrives and takes a seat. “We don’t just have the Limmat, the river that runs through the middle of the Old Town, but Lake Zurich, too.”

Zamboni wants to put his feet to work in a pedal boat— a more attractive option than jumping into one of Zurich’s many badis, or outdoor swimming pools, until there’s a rise in temperature.

And with that, the designer takes off on the water, his white hat and shirt catching the sun as he goes. For more information on visiting Zurich, go to zuerich.com.

3 Frau Gerolds Garten

An urban garden located in the center of the city.

Geroldstrasse 23

4 Kunsthaus Zurich

One of the most important art collections in Switzerland.

Heimplatz 1/5

5 Boat Hire Enge

Whether in a classic pedal boat or a sauna boat, if you’re in Zurich you have to get out on the water.

Mythenquai 25

How to get there

Situated in the heart of Europe, Zurich is easy to reach by ariline or train and then discover on foot or by bike. For more information : zuerich.com

Yannik Zamboni is working on a limited Zurich line in collaboration with the label Collectif mon Amour and Zurich Tourism. T-shirts and bags are in the pipeline and will soon be available at BIG POP.

Playlist THE REAL RAW DEAL

Rapper turned entertainment mogul Nick Cannon traces his love of R&B music with four handpicked tracks.

Nick Cannon is one busy man. On top of his work as a music artist, actor and comedian, the 42-year-old is currently executive producer and host of the hit reality competition series The Masked Singer But it’s been two decades since the release of his eponymous debut rap album. Now Cannon is back with The Explicit Tape: Raw & B, which sees him switching genres to R&B. “People are always drawing their own conclusions about my personal life,” explains the entrepreneur and father of 12, “so I just wanted to give them the raw truth.” Here he names four tracks that shaped his love for R&B and inspired his latest project. The Explicit Tape: Raw & B is out now; nickcannon.com

Scan the QR code to hear our Playlist podcast with Nick Cannon on Spotify.

MARVIN GAYE “WHAT’S GOING ON” (1971)

“I work out to this song every morning. It speaks to my purpose. It gets me locked into my mission. I wouldn’t say it reminds me of my life; it’s more about just knowing that when all eyes are on you, and people have opinions about you and your family we all have challenges and issues. If we come together as humanity, we can get through it.”

MICHAEL JACKSON “P.Y.T. (PRETTY YOUNG THING)” (1982)

“I was introduced to the Thriller album the way the rest of the world was: It was everywhere— in the grocery store, on the television. My mom would play the album and we’d get excited for ‘Beat It,’ ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Thriller,’ but ‘P.Y.T.’ was my favorite. It was an album track, so you had to be a real fan to appreciate it.”

DONNY HATHAWAY

“A SONG FOR YOU” (1971)

“The first time I ever heard this was as a kid getting ready for church on Sunday. It felt like gospel, but really it’s not— it’s a song about love. Growing up as a PK [preacher’s kid], certain types of music—like the stuff I was listening to every day—weren’t allowed in the house, but Donny Hathaway could be listened to all the time.”

GUY “I LIKE” (1989)

“I feel like the New Jack Swing era was my era. It was probably around the age I started liking girls. I’d perform this song in the playground during recess and create dance choreography to it. When I first heard it on the radio, I thought it was Stevie Wonder on vocals, like a hip-hop version. But then the DJ comes on and says it’s this new group called Guy.”

“When I’m in the ocean, I feel free and peaceful,” says Marks, who was photographed in Ponce Inlet, Florida, on May 9.

PURE GRIT

Caroline Marks, the newly crowned world champion, loves surfing almost as much as she loves to win.

Marks, shown here in her semifinal heat at the Shiseido Tahiti Pro this past August, went on to win her second of three WSL events of the year.

Caroline Marks floats with her family, belly laughing as she scans the eastern horizon for waves. As the sun dips low in Ponce Inlet, Florida, the sky behind the local lighthouse goes pastel, and shadows dance on the water. Marks is out there with her dad and two of her brothers, just screwing around on mushy 2-foot waves, but also talking a little shit and keeping score. In every way, she’s in her element.

In such moments, Marks resembles a character out of central casting—the archetypal all-American sports star with otherworldly talent and effortless charm. She exudes pure joy in the ocean. And the affection and loyalty within the family is a defining foundation of her success, a constant source of power and playfulness.

But don’t be fooled by that charisma. Marks is an unapologetic assassin. Pro surfing is full of hypercompetitive athletes who emerged as amazing prodigies and

then validated their vast talents, but on all counts, Marks is an outlier. It is easy to forget she is only 21 because she has been in the public eye for so long—she’s the youngest athlete, male or female, to reach the World Surf League’s Championship Tour, the pinnacle of the sport.

And despite all the success she’s seen at a young age, she’s had her share of struggles. Marks has faced immense pressures since childhood, and the physical and mental strain grew acute enough to convince her to step away from competition. Fortunately, this reboot appears to be a success, but she still has to battle toward her ultimate goals.

“I’m here to win,” Marks says. This is back in May, in the living room of her parents’ Florida home. “I’m here to win a world title and go to as many Olympics as possible and win a gold medal. Those are my goals, and I’m not scared to say it.”

Back in May, Marks could sense that everything was coming together. That feeling was confirmed in June at Punta Roca, a point break in El Salvador, where the seventh stop of the 2023 Championship Tour transpired. That event ended with Marks showcasing her virtuoso backhand moves before getting hoisted on her brothers’ shoulders to celebrate her first CT win in two years. She couldn’t have planned the timing of her return to the top step any better. And then in August, at the Shiseido Tahiti Pro—held at Teahupo’o, the break that will host the 2024 Olympics—she notched a decisive win in rough conditions.

Those results underscored the makings of a comeback, but they did not completely foretell the commanding performance that Marks would make on September 9 at the Rip Curl WSL Finals, held at Lower Trestles, a point break in San Clemente, California. There, Marks, who now calls San Clemente home, swept the competition with power and confidence and a wide smile. She began the day with momentum and undeniable promise and ended it with a world championship and an emphatic validation of her greatness.

“I’m aware of how good everyone is— that’s what makes it fun,” Marks said back in May. “We’re at the highest level. It’s really just 1 percent that is the difference.”

This is the story of how she got to be so good—a drama defined by familial love and personal obsession and the redemptive power of joy. The best part is that Caroline Marks found that 1 percent after realizing it was inside her all along.

The story begins in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Caroline and her siblings were lucky enough to grow up across the street from the ocean. Her parents, Darren and Sarah, encouraged the kids to spend their free time outside. (Caroline was the third of six children.) Darren built a skate ramp in the yard and constructed a dirt-bike track down the street. It was a one-minute walk to surf or fish. “My parents wanted us to hang out at the house, so they were like, ‘Well, if we make it fun for them here, they’re not going to want to leave,’ ” says Caroline’s brother Zach, two years her senior. “And on any given day, there were 10 neighborhood kids over with us.”

Caroline’s oldest brother, Luke, 24, jokes that most kids their age had a life

centered on screens. “We were always outside playing,” he recalls. “And when we got in trouble, we were grounded from going outside. Then we would be like, ‘Oh my god, what are we going to do?’ ”

This is the world that Caroline inhabited—always outside, surrounded by older brothers, bouncing from one active pursuit to another. “It felt wholesome and grounding,” she says.

Most people who become pro surfing prodigies have two things in common— a parent who pushed them toward greatness and an early start in competition. Caroline had neither. Although she showed an unusually competitive mindset from a young age— she often turned a simple game of Go or the walk to the school-bus stop into a battle with emotional consequences— her first love was rodeo. As a kid, she competed in the discipline of barrel racing, where horseback riders race around obstacles. “I was competitive at horseback riding,” says Caroline, stating the obvious. “Any time I got second, I was so pissed.”

For her older brothers, who were mostly into surfing, watching their sister compete at rodeos was foreign but impressive. “I just remember her being

“Surfing’s a lot of fun because no one could tell you what to do on a wave, and you’re free out there.”

Capping off an incredible season, Marks has plenty of reasons to smile after winning the Rip Curl WSL Finals in dominant fashion on September 9.

“Surfing is therapeutic for me,” says Marks. “My family used to joke that they could just spray me with a bottle of salt water if I was in a bad mood.”

this tiny little girl and this horse just hauling ass,” Zach laughs. “I was terrified to even go near the horses. But she’s holding on and manhandling this thing.”

The rodeo phase ended abruptly when Caroline was 10. The truth is that she loved riding horses but that she really wanted to hang out with her brothers.

Caroline was the proverbial tomboy and sought the approval of her brothers. Zach had a pair of red and black basketball shorts that she was obsessed with, and eventually he started charging her 25 cents a day to wear them. “They were down to her shins,” Luke laughs. “She would just rock them, no shirt.”

Luke and Zach and their friends’ free time revolved around surfing, so Caroline threw herself at that sport with gusto. “It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment but suddenly she was always there,” says Luke, who recalls that his sister surfed “as hard as she could, all the time” in that first year. Her rate of progress was astounding. “It was like she leveled up every month,” Luke recalls.

The boys rode Caroline pretty hard. There was tough love and blunt criticism and a lot of irrelevant but heated battling. There were a lot of tears and good

intentions. Luckily, Caroline had an obsessively gritty nature and absorbed the hazing as pure fuel to improve.

Darren remembers afternoons out on the water with the kids, staging mock heats where each grom was scored based on their age and experience. If things didn’t go Caroline’s way she would argue with the scoring and possibly storm off in anger—and return with a battle plan to prevail the next time. “She was constantly trying to figure out how to be better than them,” Darren says.

It’s a bittersweet memory now, but it wasn’t easy back then. “I actually used to come in crying pretty often, and in the moment, I hated them for it,” Caroline recalls. “I was like, ‘You guys are so mean to me!’ Now, looking back, I’m grateful that they were really brutal to me, because it made me have thick skin. Hands down, it made me a better surfer.”

Luke and Zach would tease Caroline to stop surfing like a girl, but what they really meant was for her to surf like the very best girls. It was a moment in time in which women’s surfing was progressing in a radical way, with pros like Carissa Moore and Stephanie Gilmore redefining how dynamically women could surf.

Luke recalls telling Caroline, who was still in grade school at the time, that if she was serious about surfing, she needed to be powerful like Gilmore and Moore. “We would tell Caroline, ‘Doing them little flick-y turns can only get you so far,’ ” says Luke, who was good enough to travel to California and beyond to compete in elite junior contests. “She was just trying to surf like we surfed,” he adds. “And obviously, she surfs better than both of us now. We’re trying to surf like her now.”

It’s unbelievable how quickly Caroline improved. The summer after she gave up rodeo she began winning local competitions. When she was just 11, she went out to California for the first time to compete in elite junior events against the best talent from California and Hawaii. And most of those juniors had been pushed and coached since they were little and come up through a system that Caroline had never participated in.

But the kid from Florida who no one had heard of beat them all. At the 2014 USA Championships at Lower Trestles, Caroline won the Under-12 girls title. Then she went back out and won the Under-14 girls title. And then did the same in the Under-16 competition.

Whenever she’s back in Florida, Marks loves to hit the beach for a casual surf session with family and friends.

A week later she went up to Huntington Beach and captured the open women’s National Scholastic Surfing Association title. This was not normal for an unknown 11-year-old from Florida.

Among those who saw the spectacle at Lower Trestles was Mike Parsons, a former pro who was coaching current pros Kolohe Andino and Lakey Peterson and managing future pro Kanoa Igarashi. He says his first thought was Oh my god, who is this girl? He talked with Caroline and was struck by her talent and enthusiasm. “What stood out to me the most about Caroline was her pure joy for surfing,” recalls Parsons, who soon would be managing and coaching her, too. “She would surf a heat, then go surf down the beach in between heats and then run back in, put sunscreen on and go surf again. I was like, wow, that girl’s going places.”

He was right. Before long, Caroline had amassed a staggering total of national titles. In 2014, she earned her first wildcard bid to compete in the WSL’s Qualifying Series—surfing’s equivalent to playing AAA minor league baseball. And within two years, she had performed well enough on the QS to be invited to join the Championship Tour.

In short, she went from being a fifthgrade rodeo kid to an elite pro surfer in less than six years. Who does that?

Suddenly, Caroline was flying around the globe and paddling out with pros who had graced posters on her bedroom wall. Imagine what it would be like to be so young, battling a sixtime world champion with infinitely more experience in every aspect of the professional game. Imagine that pressure.

That’s not how it was for Caroline. “I was so oblivious,” she laughs. “But ignorance is bliss, right? I had nothing to lose. I had this YOLO mentality.”

In that first season, she was simply too young to understand the gravity of the situation and was able to just go out and have fun. She ended 2018 with three podiums and eight top-10 finishes—good enough to wind up ranked seventh in the world and earn WSL Rookie of the Year honors.

That year, Caroline competed in Maui, South Africa, France, Australia and Rio de Janeiro. Everywhere she went, her family came along. In some ways, this was hardly something new for the Marks clan. Back in 2014, as Caroline’s talents and potential came into focus, Darren and Sarah decided to move the family from Florida to San Clemente. That way, Caroline could have

Kindred Spirits

It’s exceedingly tough in surfing to reach the top without lots of family participation. It could involve mentorship or pressure or unconditional love—or some mix of the three. A new podcast called Family Crest takes a deep dive on the topic, talking to pros like Caroline Marks and her parents and siblings to understand how the journey played out for them. Here’s a quick look at three other surfers whose family stories are explored in the podcast.

KAI LENNY

He’s one of the best bigwave surfers in the world and an extraordinarily versatile waterman who excels at nearly every subdiscipline and implement involving the ocean. There’s no doubt that Kai Lenny has long been intensely motivated to develop his skill set and tackle new challenges, but he’s emphatic that he wouldn’t have reached the top without ceaseless support. Here we talk with Kai, his brother, Ridge, and his parents, Martin and Paula, to learn how it all came together—and how his mom, dad and little brother still drive his career forward.

Episode highlights include classic anecdotes from Kai’s childhood, where his innate talents and hyperkinetic personality first came into focus; a short history of the family’s participation in the earliest days of social media; and an intimate conversation about the special bonds Kai and Ridge share through surfing. The episode also offers some very personal insight from Kai about his remaining career goals and what it’s like to drop into some of the world’s biggest waves.

CARISSA

MOORE

She’s undoubtedly one of the all-time greats in women’s professional surfing—and her career is hardly over. With five world championships to date and a gold medal in the sport’s Olympic

debut, Carissa Moore has helped redefine pro surfing with her dynamic style and strong voice. In this episode, we traveled to Honolulu to talk with Carissa and then chatted with her father, Chris, and her sister, Cayla, to take a much closer look at the family dynamics that helped create a champion. Chris was intensely involved in training, motivating, coaching and pushing Carissa toward greatness—a process that yielded more than a little bit of family drama.

The episode features intimate stories of Carissa’s earliest days in the waters of Oahu and her earliest dreams of a world championship, the ups and downs of her rise to greatness and the tight bonds of sisterhood that Carissa and Cayla share.

KOLOHE ANDINO

He’s an intense and massively talented pro surfer—and the son of an intense and massively motivated pro surfer. Kolohe Andino has been thrilling fans and wearing his heart on his sleeve in the public eye for a long time, and here he doesn’t hold back on discussing how family dynamics fueled and complicated the journey.

In the episode, we also talk with his father, Dino; his sister, Niah; and his longtime coach, Mike Parsons. Typically blunt and honest, Dino is in classic form in the conversation, recounting the intense endeavor to push and support his son’s extraordinary talent. Ultimately, the episode illuminates how family dynamics can often be complicated but ultimately driven by the most beautiful kind of love.

A new Red Bulletin podcast explores how family influences shaped the careers of top Red Bull surfers.

Marks joined the Championship Tour when she was only 16, younger than any other surfer, male or female, in the history of the sport.

“Now I’m at a place where I feel rejuvenated. It made me appreciate surfing and my lifestyle a lot more.”

daily access to better coaching and surfing. (It’s worth noting that Zach had launched a successful social media platform for kids called Grom Social, so the move to California helped his aspirations, too.)

“Darren and I have always had an attitude of we do everything for whoever it is in our family—so let’s just go for it,” Sarah says. “I think with all the kids, the approach was, let’s just have fun. If you have fun at doing it, you’ll succeed.”

Still, Sarah and Darren had to wrestle with some big questions when Caroline was invited to join the CT. It was a huge opportunity, of course—but was it really the best move for their daughter? “This was never about trying to help create a famous athlete,” Sarah says. “It’s just about supporting our children with whatever they want to do.”

For most families, that doesn’t involve towing six kids around the world. But when Caroline got her bid, the mother of another pro on the CT gave Sarah some mom-to-mom advice that she took to heart: “Don’t let her go anywhere alone.”

So they hit the road. It wasn’t always easy. “In the beginning it was hard on the little ones,” says Darren, recounting 20hour flying days and meltdowns over airplane food and long transfers. “But I feel like once we got to the place we were going, everybody was perfect. Flip-flops went on, boards went under the arm, and everybody found a place to surf.”

These family adventures were grounding for Caroline—being surrounded by her inner circle, keeping things light and honest. She says she loves having her mother around. “We talk about stuff that makes my life feel a little more real, and that helps me have more of a healthy balance,” she says. “Otherwise I’d just think about surfing all day long.”

Caroline also appreciates her brothers’ presence, even if they still torture her a

little. “On the road, you see other people and a lot of times, they tell you how awesome you are,” she says. “But my brothers—they mainly tell me what I need to work on. They humble the shit out of me, and I’m grateful for that.”

If her rookie season had been a pleasant surprise, Caroline’s 2019 season was all about high performance and quietly building pressures. With the possible exception of her breakout 2023 season, it surely was her best year as a pro. She finished in the top 10 at every CT event, winning twice and landing on six podiums. It was good enough for her to finish second overall on the CT. People started asking aloud when she’d win a world title.

“During that season, I started to feel the pressure,” Caroline admits. “I started the season with a win, so I suddenly felt like a target was on my back. I was only 17, but all of a sudden I was in the yellow jersey, I was number one in the world. And once you get to the highest level and become number one and win events, you feel like anything less than that is almost a failure.”

Her outstanding performance that season carried extra weight because it also meant that Caroline had earned a coveted spot for the sport’s Olympic debut in Tokyo. On paper everything was perfect. She had momentum.

But sometimes the biggest, most interesting tests a person faces come out of nowhere. Caroline had no idea a pandemic was coming. And she hadn’t yet realized that she might have raced to the top so fast that she’d have a price to pay.

Everyone in the Marks family has funny stories about how Caroline is unceasingly competitive. Here she spars with her younger brother, Dawson, throwing punches and possibly a few taunts.

“I’m

only 21,” Marks says of whether she considers herself a veteran. “I have all this experience at a young age, and I truly believe that my best years are still ahead of me.”

But before we reach that looming impasse, it’s worth exploring what makes Caroline so special. What differentiates her in a sport that’s full of amazing athletes?

The most obvious thing about Caroline is the strength of her backhand—meaning her surfing when her back is facing a wave. “I don’t know why my backhand’s good,” Caroline says. “I’ve had comparisons to [Australian legend] Mark Occhilupo, which is very flattering.” Indeed, this is the surfing equivalent of getting compliments that your jump shot reminds people of Stephen Curry’s.

But Parsons says her talents go deeper than that. Consider, for instance, her instincts in the water. “Surf contests are really fickle,” he says. “Even when you’re surfing your best, you still have to have Mother Nature go your way. That’s what the real special surfers have—like Carissa, Stephanie, John John [Florence], Kelly Slater—they read the ocean better than anyone. They understand when they need to hurry up and take a quick wave and when they need to wait for a really good one; when the conditions are going to change; and how to move around and wind up on the best wave. And that’s something

Caroline’s really good at. Her instincts competitively are as good as anybody’s.”

The second differentiator, Parsons says, is her power and flow. “She’s really incredible at putting together a complete ride,” he says. “Caroline can put together multiple turns without a mistake at full throttle and make it look easy. And that’s probably the biggest compliment you can give a surfer—doing really hard things and making them look easy.”

For her part, Caroline gets a little tongue-tied trying to articulate her strengths. She knows she has a worldclass backhand and good instincts, but she’d rather do it than talk about it. “I think surfing’s like painting a picture,” she says. “Every canvas is so different. Like, there’s never the same wave. And no one’s telling you what you can do. I think that’s so cool. I think the best way to surf is, you don’t even think, you just do. That’s the ultimate feeling as a surfer.”

The year 2020 was a weird one for so many elite athletes (and, no doubt, everyone else). The pandemic put big life goals on hold and forced everyone to hunker down. In Caroline’s case, this turmoil came at an inopportune time, disrupting her momentum just as longsimmering pressures reached a slow boil.

Marks gave a master class in backhand style and power en route to victory at the Rip Curl WSL Finals at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, California.

“I’m here to win a world title,” Marks says. “I’m aware of how good everyone is, but that’s what makes this so fun.”

HAYDEN GARFIELD

As everyone knows, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics didn’t happen until July 2021. And even then, things weren’t exactly normal. While normally multiple members of the Marks family travel with Caroline to big events, pandemic-related rules dictated that athletes would have to be on their own and follow strict socialdistancing protocols.

For Caroline, the Games didn’t quite have a storybook ending. She surfed great in her early rounds, and her score of 15.33 in her third-round heat wound up being the highest combined score in the entire competition. But despite such flashes of brilliance, she wound up fourth, surely at least a little short of what she had hoped. (On the bright side, she doesn’t have long to wait for redemption at the 2024 Olympics—the surfing competition will take place 10,000 miles from Paris at Teahupo’o in Tahiti. And as a bonus reward from her strong performance at the WSL Finals, Caroline formally earned a bid to join the U.S. squad next summer.)

After Tokyo, things got harder. Though she kept it close to the vest, Caroline was battling multiple issues. Things came to a head after the opening WSL event of 2022. At the Billabong Pro Pipeline that February, Caroline placed 17th after two lackluster rounds. That spurred what she calls the toughest decision of her life—to skip the entire rest of the season.

For understandable reasons, Caroline is wary to discuss the specifics of what she was going through—some of it involved a medical diagnosis, some of it was mental, and some of it was world weariness from going full gas since middle school—but she is frank about her need to reset.

“I was dealing with some health issues—and I was dealing with a lot of stuff mentally,” she says, offering context on her reboot. “And so mentally and physically I wasn’t there at all, and I tried to pretend I was. I found myself in a place where I wasn’t having fun anymore, and that was really weird for me, because I’ve always had so much fun. It was really scary to take time off, but I needed to.”

Caroline’s family, her innermost circle when it comes to existential matters, experienced an emotional gamut themselves—absorbing her predicament, worrying about her well-being, supporting her decision to step away, hoping and even praying that everything would turn out right. “I think it was really hard for all of us,” says Darren. “Everybody kind of went through it because we have a

family where if one person is hurt or wounded, we all feel it.”

Sarah agrees. “As an athlete, taking a break—what does that tell the world? ‘I’m weak; I can’t handle it’?’ That was something we had to work through,” she says. “I’m grateful for all the Olympians who have spoken out on mental health and taking breaks. The pressure of the world is tremendous on an athlete.”

But as always, the Marks family was 100 percent behind Caroline. “We all realized she needed to step back and take a break,” Darren says. “And I think she knew it, but she wasn’t ready to let go. It was really hard because you could see her mentally struggling with it. She never had that period where a lot of promising surfers go amateur. She just went from surfing in the NSSA to the world tour. It was like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute—there’s a big amount of stuff in between that she skipped right over.’ ”

But as Darren says now, the family felt convinced that a reboot would make Caroline better. Caroline says that she came to share this belief and put all her energy toward that end.

“I didn’t even surf for a while—I just needed to completely disconnect,” Caroline says. “And that was terrifying, because my whole life, all I’ve ever known is being competitive at the highest level. In moments I wondered, ‘Am I ever going to get out of this?’ But now, I’m at a place where I feel rejuvenated. I’m just grateful, and it

made me appreciate surfing and my lifestyle a lot more.”

Now, 18 months after Caroline hit the wall and made that tough decision to step away from pro sports and address her physical and mental issues, it’s looking like the smartest move she ever made. When she returned to the Championship Tour earlier this year, everything fell into place. “Now we’re all good,” she roclaims. “I’m having fun again—that’s the most important thing.”

Of course, for an elite athlete it is easier to have fun when you’re competing at your best. And in the end, the 2023 season was undoubtedly the best of her career. In the final eight events of the season, she finished no worse than fifth. The triumphant denouement came at the World Finals.

There, after coming in as the third seed, she won preliminary matches against Caitlin Simmers and Tyler Wright, getting more confident and commanding with her lethal backhand as the morning progressed. And then in the finals, she decisively swept Carissa Moore, a champion Marks has idolized since she was a kid. When the horn sounded to seal her victory, Caroline cupped her hands around her mouth as if she was too stunned to speak.

That feeling passed before she got to the beach. “There’s definitely going to be a massive party after this,” said the newly crowned champion with an easy smile. “And everyone is invited.”

Lew, 21, won the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in May and is heading to the World Final in Frankfurt, Germany, on November 4.

TAKING THE LEAP

A viral sensation by the time he was 11, dance phenom Sean Lew has turned his focus to conquering his fear of battling—all the way to the largest global stage.

Words JEFF WEISS Photography MAR Í A JOSÉ GOVEA

The path to glory started with fear. The prevailing truism still holds that “the only thing you have to fear is fear itself,” but in the case of 21-year-old dancer and artist Sean Lew, he intuitively understood that the only way to shatter stasis was to tackle what most instilled terror in him.

This is how Lew found himself in Chicago at the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in May of this year. A prodigy since preschool, by the time that the Southern California native entered junior high, he was already an acclaimed choreographer with viral videos, television appearances and countless dance championships to his name. But nothing induced dread like the prospect of a freestyle battle. And only

a few months after deciding to enter this unfamiliar arena, he was competing in the final rounds against those who had dedicated their lives to the art of improvisation.

“I’ve experienced a lot in my years dancing: reality shows, competitions, music videos, award shows. I’ve hit a lot of the marks,” Lew says at a warehouse space in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles, roughly 25 miles from the tidy suburb on the eastern fringes of L.A. County where he grew up and still lives.

“Post-pandemic, it got to a point where I was like, ‘What am I doing? How do I avoid feeling like I’m stuck? What scares me the most? What have I been avoiding my whole dance career?’ ” Lew continues. “That’s when it kind of hit me. My biggest fear ever is battling.”

If Zoomers are often stereotyped as distracted and anxious narcissists addicted

to social media, Lew comes off as the diametric opposite. Despite being one of the best and most famous dancers on Earth, he speaks gently and with striking empathy. His phone is nowhere in sight. He makes eye contact with the concentration of a Zen master. His discipline, politeness and humility lend the wizened air of someone who has lived several lifetimes before this one.

The old-soul calm is a stark contrast to his electric charisma and Olympian dance floor athleticism. He wears long black hair, a plain white tee and greenand-eggshell-colored pants that he personally painted with a picture of the sun. When Lew talks about what he’s most passionate about—dance, family, cooking, film—his dark eyes exude a sparkling sheen. He’s here without an entourage, traveling only with his trainer and coach, Karl Flores.

Sean Lew was photographed for The Red Bulletin at RoseWolff Studio in downtown L.A. on August 9.

With gymnastic flexibility and effortless grace, Lew has amassed more than 1.5 million Instagram followers who hang on his every move.

“I can’t party. I’m antisocial. I like to be at home before midnight,” Lew laughs. “My best friends are in their late 20s and older. I love that. I love being around people who are better than me. I love being around people who know more than me, because it inspires me to want to know more.”

These self-effacing qualities become even more striking when you factor in the 1.5 million Instagram followers who hang on his every move. Or his appearances on the first two seasons of NBC’s World of Dance, where a 16-year-old Lew and his partner, Kaycee Rice, were so impressive they made Jennifer Lopez cry. (J.Lo hailed him as a “technically perfect prodigy … [he moves] me in a way I cannot explain.”) Or the choreography he’s done for stars like Justin Bieber and Meghan Trainor. Or the fact that he’s currently starring on the Fox crime drama The Cleaning Lady. Or that somehow he managed to find the time to write, direct and produce a onehour avant-garde dance musical, 2021’s II: An Unspoken Narrative. Oh, and just for fun, he’s also a virtuosic chef who won the Chopped Junior competition in 2016.

Lew excels at so many things that it seems almost comical—as if he’s a terminator sent from a utopian future to dazzle audiences with tricky dance moves, teach them how to make delectable five-spice seared duck breasts and eventually rack up EGOT wins (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). He was ostensibly born without the gene that

causes trepidation, but in reality, that’s definitely not the case.

“I don’t care how many times I’ve battled, it will never get easy for me. I will always be nervous,” Lew says. “The beautiful thing about battling is that you’re always going to be mentally and physically challenged. To me, that’s a sign of growth. You have to learn to be OK with being uncomfortable.”

Bear in mind, very few people on this planet look more comfortable dancing than Sean Lew. His effortless grace, gymnastic flexibility, blinding speed and creative ingenuity allow him to stamp a singular imprint on every conceivable style. Whether it’s hip-hop, jazz, ballroom,

modern dance, house, ballet or samba, he’s mastered them all. At times, his moves recall those of Michael Jackson, Usher or a half dozen other dance-world inspirations. But Lew transcends the medium altogether. Watching him dance is like glimpsing a David Blaine sleight-ofhand card trick or witnessing Simone Biles landing a double layout with a half twist. It is the divine gift that would seem prophesized by a wise trio bringing myrrh into a manger. But this story has a more pedestrian origin. It begins in a sleepy Los Angeles suburb called Walnut.

The old Zimbabwean proverb holds that “if you can walk, you can dance.” This may not be true for the tens of millions with two left feet, but in the case of Lew, it is axiomatic. He began dancing almost as soon as he stopped crawling. The spark began after his parents enrolled his two older sisters, Serris and Sarah, in dance class. Occasionally, the toddler, Sean, tagged along to watch. His extraordinary talent and ambition became apparent after the family got home. Blasting his sisters’ music tracks on repeat, he attempted to copy their choreographed moves in the living room.

“They had a group piece where they were dancing with a towel. So I took a towel from the bathroom and acted like I knew the dance—up to the point where my parents were like, ‘OK, I think we need to put you in the class, too,’ ” Lew recalls. “I didn’t want to watch TV. I didn’t want to play games, I didn’t want to do anything but dance.”

His parents, immigrants from China and Japan, encouraged their son’s

At the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in Chicago in May, Lew wowed audiences with his singular style and impeccable timing.

burgeoning gift. By the end of his first class he burst into tears, because he didn’t want it to be over. Before he was old enough to read, Lew already knew what he wanted for the rest of his life.

“I couldn’t envision doing anything else,” he says, beaming at the youthful enthusiasm that has scarcely dimmed. “To be fair, I was only 4.”

If you have the time, a deep dive on Lew’s YouTube page is highly recommended. There he is, only 6 years old, shirtless and dimpled in yellow harem pants, performing a tap dance routine worthy of Gregory Hines to the Lion King soundtrack. At 9 years old, he’s leading a jazz dance trio: backflipping, pirouetting and busting out splits to Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.” It’s hard to fathom a child so young and adorable having such poise, swagger and command of his movements, but here lies tangible proof.

A generation ago, such precocity would have landed Lew a Star Search championship. Maybe even a spot on the new Mickey Mouse Club. But in the modern era, he could rocket to international notoriety simply by going viral. What feels inevitable in retrospect first occurred to Lew at age 11, when a

2013 video of him leading a routine to Lady Gaga’s “Applause” became one of the most widely circulated clips on the internet. A month later, Lew was invited to perform the dance on The Queen Latifah Show. A star was born.

“When I dance, I feel like I’m being heard and seen,” says Lew, describing what made him fall in love with the art. “I feel like my voice is louder than when I actually speak. I want to feel happy, and I only feel that way when I dance.”

Happiness may have been readily accessible through the pursuit of his dreams, but it wasn’t always a constant. As he rose through the ranks of the dance world—joining the Pulse on Tour convention, traveling across the country to teach master classes, stealing the show on World of Dance—there was the desire to find a normal teenage life.

“At public school, I got made fun of for being a male dancer. When I tried to play basketball, I got pushed away or laughed at for the clothes I wore, or the career I was trying to pursue,” Lew says of the year he spent at junior high before switching to homeschooling. “In public school, I found myself a little depressed and lost.”

The generational dislocation was mitigated by tremendous professional success and a tight-knit family. Nearly all of his passions stem back to his closest kin. Lew ascribes his love of art to his mother and grandmother, both painters. He began dancing to emulate his sisters, whom he has also partnered with on the “Lewser” clothing line. His mother is a great cook, so it was only natural that a young Lew became obsessed with cooking shows. Soon enough, Lew threw a “Family Appreciation Day,” where he re-envisioned their Walnut home as a restaurant. At 11, he cooked a multicourse dinner for his parents and sisters, even serving them like a waiter.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, but seeing the emotions on their faces made me really happy,” Lew says. “I don’t ever really see cooking as a career. It’s always just been a vessel for me to make people happy. That’s how I see dancing, as well as any art form.”

If there’s a reason why Lew is so grounded and devoid of ego, that too can be traced back to his family.

“My parents always wanted to keep him levelheaded,” Serris Lew says. “He still had to get good grades. There was

“When I dance, I feel like I’m being heard and seen, like my voice is louder than when I actually speak.”

Beyond his talents as a dancer and choreographer, Lew is also an accomplished chef and a regular cast member on the Fox drama The Cleaning Lady

that expectation that even if you’re an amazing dancer, there’s a business aspect. You have to communicate well with people. No matter how famous he got, my parents cared most about how hard he was working.”

His other sister, Sarah, agrees. “Sean was always self-motivated,” she says. “He’s the one who went out in search of projects, trying new things.”

Behind this indefatigable work ethic lies clarion vision. For all the unseen fear, there is a bravery that allows him to conquer whatever piques his interest. When he wanted to learn to cook, he didn’t seek out the best culinary school; he just started experimenting in the kitchen. When he wanted to learn to act, he knew that memorizing scripts, taking acting classes and recording his own monologues came before finding an agent. When he wanted to make his own film, he taught himself to write, direct and edit. He raised all the money himself, too.

“It’s not about winning on your first go,” Lew says. “It’s about knowing how to respond to your failures first and then using them to eventually find success.”

Let’s be unequivocal: Sean Lew is not beholden to the same laws of gravity or physical constraints that burden regular mortals. We can talk all day about his work ethic and innate talent, but some

At the beginning of this year, Lew asked his trainer, Karl Flores (left), to help him get battle-ready for Red Bull Dance Your Style.

rare outliers are naturally inclined toward greatness. He’s in a very special league.

His journey to the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in Chicago only began at the start of this year. There was no eureka epiphany—merely the desire to triumph over his darkest anxieties.

“I told [trainer Karl Flores], ‘Here’s a crazy idea. What if we train for Red Bull Dance Your Style?’ ” Lew says. “We had the same questions: What is it about? How do you train for it? All I knew was that it was one of my biggest fears and the time to do it was now. It held me accountable to facing my fear. If I didn’t do Dance Your Style, I knew I would never battle.”

Lew had spent his career working within tightly scripted choreography, but Red Bull Dance Your Style reflected the gleefully spontaneous opposite. The competition unites dancers from all streetstyle disciplines to compete in one-on-one

battles. You don’t know the songs that the DJ will play ahead of time. The crowd votes for the winner.

The resistance to battling makes sense when you understand Lew’s temperament. Battling is built on bulletproof confidence that can easily veer into the hubristic. It is hypercompetitive and rooted in the notion of being better than everybody else.

“It’s not my type of conversation,” Lew admits. “Everything about the industry that I grew up in is the opposite of battling. You respect your peers. I don’t like to compete directly with people … just myself. But battling is very exposing. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done—all that matters is that you have the better moment than the other person.” After they filed their application to enter, Lew and Flores devised a plan. Flores invented a new experimental program that took Lew straight from rowing machines and treadmills to minute-long freestyle routines. The idea was to force him to innovate in a fatigued state to mimic the conditions of a battle.

On paper, these collaborators share a traditional coach-athlete relationship, but in person they seem more like best friends and brothers focused on achieving mutual goals.

“He has such a good heart and pure, joyous energy,” Flores says of Lew. “He’s humble but hungry. A pure artist who seizes the moment with creativity and decisiveness. And he has an insane amount of courage.”

For nearly anyone else, constant success could have bred complacency. But with Lew, nagging self-doubt pushed him harder. It wasn’t enough to refine his krump and house skills; he reached out to experts to teach him the history and culture behind these genres. Without understanding the background, he felt like integrating these styles would seem hollow and imitative.

After months of rigorous training, Lew faced his first challenge in April: the

notably difficult Red Bull Dance Your Style Los Angeles regional qualifier. In this capital of entertainment, home to the most celebrated dancers in the world, Lew easily cruised to victory despite dealing with cramps in his calves. The following day, he and Flores returned to work, brainstorming on how to improve his performance and avoid health problems for May’s national final.

In Chicago, the fear threatened to swallow him whole. Less than half a year after deciding to battle, Lew was now going move for move with the best freestylers from across the country. But his lack of experience didn’t matter. With ruthless efficiency and a disarming smile, Lew dispatched would-be competitors. The final loomed, where he was pitted against Oakland’s formidable Daisy VMZ.

The tension continued to mount, but after each round, Flores flashed Lew a calming “you got this” grin. No matter how much the knot in his stomach tightened, Lew’s natural instincts and creativity kicked in. To watch the last round of the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final is to experience one of the most inventive wild-style performances ever captured on video. There is no way to convey the velocity, showmanship and kinetic voltage of Lew’s interpretations. You just need to see it.

“I had to trust that the music would take me to wherever I needed to be,” says Lew, describing the process. “In my head, I pictured everyone who has supported

me along the way. My true family. No matter what I do, this is for them. It’s not for me. It’s not for the audience.”

At first, the DJ spins Busta Rhymes’s “Break Ya Neck,” a whiplash-inducing Dr. Dre beat that Rhymes demolishes at warp speed. Lew proceeds to match their level of greatness like he’d been practicing these moves to this beat for months. He pops and locks, whips his hands, glides like Gene Kelly, stomps the ground in a circle like he learned to krump on asphalt, kicks his legs like his joints don’t matter and hits a B-Boy freeze at the precise moment that Busta yells “Stop!!”

With the second selection, Crystal Waters’s house anthem “Gypsy Woman” booms from the speakers. It couldn’t be more different than the first track, but Lew hits moves that could only be described as “what if the Rock Steady Crew were the stars of Paris Is Burning?” For the finale, Lew turns Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem’s “Family Ties” into something like a Compton house-party ballet choreographed by Misty Copeland. He imitates a whirling bird, runs in circles, toys with the beat’s tempo, spins with figure-skater speed and slams the floor in time with Keem’s screaming “Beat ’em up! Beat ’em up!”

Battling is often filled with bravado and rivalry. But Lew’s performance is so good humored and filled with such unbridled passion that at the end of the song, Daisy VMZ wraps him in a bear hug.

After the crowd votes him champion, Lew’s family streams out from the stands to envelop him in a warm embrace.

“Never in a million years did I think I would have a moment like that,” Lew says. “I wanted to gain a new experience in my life and in my dance career. And when my family ran on stage, that was the moment I had been hoping for. It was the reason why I stepped into this whole journey in the first place.”

The Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final awaits on November 4 in Frankfurt, Germany. Of course, Lew is already swept up in a whirlwind of activity, with teaching trips taking him to Korea, Mexico, Japan and China. And every time he puts on his choreographer hat, he says it pulls him away from the mentality required to be a freestyle champion.

“I’m the most nervous that I’ve ever been, which is funny because I say that before every battle,” Lew laughs. “But doing all this choreography again, I’ve been freaking out about going to Frankfurt, because I have no idea how I’m actually going to be able to prepare for this.”

This is a natural emotion. After all, it’s inevitable that nerves would come into play, having to go up against the world’s greatest dancers in a foreign country in front of a rapturous audience. But in truth, it’s everyone who has to compete against Sean Lew who should be very afraid.

Lew will compete against the best dancers from more than 30 countries at the Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final in Frankfurt.

“When my family ran on stage, that was the moment I had been hoping for,” Lew says of winning the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final. “It was the reason why I stepped into this journey in the first place.”

LEGENDS IN THE MAKING

Last year’s League of Legends World Championship emerged as an epic battle between two heroes with a shared past but a divided destiny. Ahead of the 2023 tournament in South Korea, we look back at one of the wildest matchups in esports history.

Words DANIEL BROWN

More than 14,500 lively fans filled San Francisco’s Chase Center last November to witness the 2022 League of Legends World Championship Final. Millions more watched on Twitch and YouTube.

Having just belted out the last note of his League of Legends–inspired anthem, “Star Walkin’, ” rapper Lil Nas X emerges backstage, looking resplendent in a strawberry-blonde wig and shimmering metallic breastplate.

Even in an arena where many of the 14,548 fans arrived for the 2022 League of Legends World Championship Final in costume—a staple of this rollicking event—Nas remains easy to spot as he strides purposefully through the corridors of San Francisco’s Chase Center.

“Killed it!’’ one female passerby tells him.

“Love your dress,’’ Nas replies without stopping. The rapper moves briskly through the halls until he reaches a locker room, which on many autumn nights serves as a haven for NBA stars. Indeed, this scene, on November 5 of last year, might have looked familiar to LeBron James or Stephen Curry, because Nas is still catching his breath when someone sticks a camera in his face and asks: “How does it feel to know that millions of people just watched you do that?”

Two-time Grammy winner Lil Nas X sang the tournament’s official anthem while looking divine in a strawberry-blonde wig.

“How does it feel?” Nas responds, smiling. “I think it’s sick. That’s a crazy number of people.”

An astute postgame analysis, because crazy is the word for it, alright.

The League of Legends World Championship, better known in fandom as Worlds, is the pinnacle of professional video gaming, the annual culmination of a globe-spanning regular season contested among 12 regional leagues organized by game developer Riot Games. Riot seeds 24 teams to compete in this

epic, five-week-long tournament to attain the ultimate accolade in the biggest esports game on the planet: League of Legends—or LoL to its followers.

The glitzy opening ceremony alone spoke to— nay, screamed to—the absurdist rise of this now 14-year-old video game. Released by Riot in 2009, LoL somehow ascended from a staple of childhood basements in the early years to this unlikely scene: a two-time Grammy winner singing the tournament’s official anthem (Lil Nas X was declared “President of

In 2022, the tournament’s two main combatants, Deft (left) and Faker, were high school classmates in South Korea.

Faker, a three-time Worlds champion, has been called “the Michael Jordan of esports.”

Deft, whose track record at Worlds has been defined by early-round defeats, was considering retirement.

League of Legends” two months earlier) inside a $1.6 billion stadium amid a hologram-generated re-creation of the fictional realm the game is set in, while engulfed by giant virtual versions of LoL characters like K’Sante and Azir (whose powers, alas, include neither singing nor dancing).

That 3-minute, 57-second performance—billed by Lil Nas X as “the best Worlds anthem of all time,” composed for “the biggest, coolest, sexiest Worlds in the history of all Worlds”—required a 2,000-strong production crew to realize it, while 80 semi trucks of equipment were loaded into Chase Center, compared to around 20 for a standard concert.

It was, to paraphrase Lil Nas X, bonkers. And it only got more so. Worlds 2022 sold out in under five minutes—a Chase Center record. Online mentions of the Worlds Final spanned more than 240 countries, with near-equal interest across the globe. And the rise of streaming only turbo-boosted the numbers, which soared to a peak of 5.15 million concurrent viewers worldwide. In all, the finals accrued 121.7 million total hours watched.

The aftershocks remain strong. When the 2023 Championship begins in South Korea this fall, it will still be riding the momentum from a year ago. The competition will take place at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, the largest indoor venue in the country, with a capacity of about 17,000. Known as the birthplace of esports—where its homegrown stars can reach Taylor Swiftian levels of fame— South Korea might be the only place capable of delivering a worthy sequel.

All it will have to do is top last year’s dramatic storyline, which goes something like this: DRX, a team best described as a longshot, barely edged into the global tournament and capped an unlikely run by slaying T1, the mightiest heroes in the history of League of Legends

In the process, the staggeringly popular Faker, a three-time Worlds champion, widely considered the greatest LoL player of all time and often described as “the Michael Jordan of esports,” lost to a longsuffering player named Deft, who is largely defined by stunning early-round defeats on or around his

birthday, which occurs during Worlds ever year. (“It used to be a day of sorrow,” describes Deft.) His stress and suffering led to moments where he felt like retiring.

Those two main combatants—Faker (real name: Lee Sang-hyeok) and Deft (Kim Hyuk-kyu)—were so central to the Worlds narrative a year ago that when DRX forced a decisive fifth game in a best-of-five match in the finals, it had the air of a duel at dawn.

“Faker and Deft combined have played more than 2,000 games, and it’s going to come down to one!” a shoutcaster known as Caedrel bellowed at the top of his lungs during the broadcast.

“The GOAT versus the alpaca!” his co-caster Kobe added, raising the stakes by a few decibels.

You want more? Faker and Deft were classmates, but hardly friends, at Mapo High in South Korea back when the game was relatively new. Even then, Faker’s talent towered above his rival. “I was first on the [school’s LoL] ladder. My nickname was ‘Mapo High School’s Fiery Fist,’ ” Faker once recounted. “I was about 100 on the ladder,” is Deft’s recollection. The two also went pro in the same year, 2013.

“The GOAT versus the alpaca!” a caster yells, raising the stakes by a few decibels.

Lil Nas X called the event “the biggest, coolest, sexiest Worlds in the history of all Worlds.”

At an icy pre-Worlds photo shoot, a photographer tried to get the two high-profile combatants to stand closer together. “Best friends,’’ he said playfully. “Nice and close.” Deft and Faker just ignored that request, as well as each other, with Faker later saying, “We’ve spent too much time being each other’s rivals. So we don’t have any kind of personal relationship.” Their reunions must be a laugh.

Still, there’s too much mutual respect for actual bad blood. “Their two personalities match so well, in that they’re both pure-hearted,’’ says Tyler Erzberger, an industry expert and former esports journalist. “Both are people you want to root for. There’s no villain in this story.”

A year later, Worlds 2023, like a bingeworthy TV show hoping to stay fresh, could come with a complete cast reboot. Less than three weeks after the 2022 finals, Deft signed with DWG KIA in a blockbuster announcement. (In fact, every player from DRX departed except for one—BeryL.) The minute the players achieved fame, others came to poach them, and there wasn’t the money or resources to hold on to them. It’s as if a small-town football team won the Super Bowl. The economic realities only underscore just how amazing DRX taking home the trophy really was.

Faker remains with T1, but with him sidelined with an injury for most of the summer, his team faltered. Without their talisman, they lost five games in a row, plummeting to fourth-worst in the league, almost certain to miss the Korean league playoffs. Then, on August 2, LoL Esports declared that Faker was back in the starting lineup. The same day, T1 defeated opponents Kwangdong Freecs. The headline: “The Return of the King.”

One thing is for sure—whoever rises up to deliver this year’s legend has some big headsets to fill.

“It’s a high bar, but we can’t wait to blow fans away with what we have in store for Worlds 2023,’’ says Naz Aletaha, global head of League of Legends Esports, in advance of the tournament’s opening round in Seoul. “Bringing Worlds to [South Korea] is a fitting next chapter.”

Worlds 2023 begins on October 10, with the finals set for November 19. Watch it on Riot Games’ Twitch channel: twitch.tv/riotgames. You can also check out the documentary about last year’s Worlds Final, DRX The Rise, at redbull.com.

“Their personalities match so well: They are both pure-hearted; both are people you want to root for.”

Considered a longshot, DRX, the team led by Deft, ultimately slayed T1, the defending champions, spearheaded by Deft’s rival, Faker.

FORWARD PROGRESSION

The Toronto Raptors and their fans know they have a star in super-versatile power forward Pascal Siakam. Now, it’s time for everyone else to fully grasp his talents and his amazing origin story.

Words DEMARCO WILLIAMS P hotography DAVID CLERIHEW

“I’m blessed to be in the NBA,” says Siakam. Fans of the Toronto Raptors have been blessed, too, as the power forward has elevated himself from unheralded draft pick to two-time NBA All-Star.

P

ascal Siakam is living proof of the elevated state of basketball in Africa. After all, the forward with the Toronto Raptors has been on a decade-long odyssey—from Cameroon to Texas to New Mexico to NBA stardom. Siakam is a shining example of what’s possible.

To get a sense of the not-so-quiet revolution that is happening, consider the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup. For starters, a record-tying five nations from the continent participated in the tournament: Angola, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ivory Coast and South Sudan. Second, typical powerhouse Nigeria didn’t qualify, hinting at a changing of the guard in the region. And third, players like Angola’s Childe Dundão more than held their own against some of the best hoopers on the planet. Pascal Siakam’s native Cameroon failed to qualify, but positive changes have been happening around his country’s squad, too. Budding national talents like 6-foot-11 Ulrich Chomche, 17, are a huge source of optimism. By the time the 2027 World Cup in Qatar tips off, they could be ready for the big stage.

Siakam is one of the main reasons for all the newfound attention in Africa’s direction. In just over a 10-year span, the Douala-born product has gone from utter

obscurity to the pantheon of NBA power players. And the basketball world can’t wait to find the next sensation.

“A lot of people are opening their eyes into the continent and seeing the talent,” says Siakam, a two-time NBA AllStar with the Toronto Raptors. “There are a lot of kids that look like me. And if they’re given the opportunity, they could achieve some of the things that I’ve done.”

Siakam probably gave a cursory glance at the FIBA World Cup—Raptors teammate Dennis Schröder was playing for Germany, after all—but the versatile forward has other things on his mind at the moment, namely a new basketball season that begins in late October.

Wild contracts and lavish private jets are the shiny parts of pro basketball life. But there’s another side, one filled with bumps, bruises and banging around with Giannis Antetokounmpo and fellow countryman Joel Embiid under the basket. If you don’t get stronger and smarter every year, you may fall farther down the team’s depth chart. And Siakam likes his lofty spot in the Raptors’ ranks.

Staying on top of his training regime was a part of the reason Siakam ventured to Austria over the summer. He visited Red Bull’s global headquarters and the brand’s athlete performance center while he was there. “Salzburg was beautiful,” says Siakam, who lists traveling and photography as two of his favorite offcourt passions. “A lot of scenery. It was a different vibe from what I’m used to. I was out there for like a week. I brought my guys out there and we were training. It was great.”

Nothing quite like breathing in crisp Alpine air while getting in some cardio. “I love being in situations where I’m not in my comfort zone,” adds the 6-foot-8, 230-pound power forward. “Now, I always try to incorporate that into my training—seeing a different culture, but also just continuing to get the work, no matter the environment.”

Surroundings were a bit more familiar in Los Angeles a few weeks later, but the work was just as grueling. Videos of Siakam, 29, playing intense pick-up games with NBA cohorts like Jalen Green and Harrison Barnes were all over social media. The pro schedule might technically run from October through June, but when you hit Siakam’s level of excellence, it’s a 12-month grind of long training sessions and lots and lots

In the last two seasons, no player in the NBA has played more minutes per game than Siakam, a reflection of just how important he is to the Toronto Raptors.

“I’ll just continue to get better as a basketball player,” says Siakam, who was photographed in Salzburg, Austria, on July 26.

of shots. What, you thought those soft floaters in the paint just happened by magic?

The silky Siakam averaged a careerhigh 24.2 points, a career-high 5.8 assists and a near-career-high 7.8 rebounds during the 2022-23 NBA campaign, yet his team still toed the line between pretender and pretty good all season. A .500 finish only illuminates the Raptors’ rut. “Forty-one and 41 is not good,” says Siakam. “We can understand some of the things that we didn’t do well and try to do them better. Just continue to evolve as a young team. The potential is there. We just gotta continue to get better.”

Of the 10 seasons prior to last year, the Raptors made it to the playoffs in eight of them. And they got to at least the Eastern Conference semifinals in five of those. Simply put: Toronto is used to more. The franchise and the city are leaning on Siakam, the team’s best player, to give it to them.

That’s a world of pressure for a guy who didn’t even know he wanted to play basketball until he was 16. When Siakam and his three older brothers were growing up, soccer was king in Cameroon. Still is. But back then, it was the only play. Pascal had dreams of becoming the next Samuel Eto’o (a compatriot who starred for clubs including FC Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea back in the day), not Chris Bosh. That was until he stumbled upon a basketball camp and was discovered by NBA player and Cameroon native Luc Mbah a Moute. Pascal had naturally good footwork. He was super agile. Had one of those man-aren’t-you-tired-yet drives. But he was raw. He went to a few more camps and started to think seriously about a future with his fadeaway.

“Just seeing all the NBA players, touching them, talking to them—it felt real,” remembers Siakam. “Because people where I’m from don’t really

accomplish these things. We don’t get to these levels [of success]. So it never felt real until I got to basketball. I was like, ‘Oh man, these people look like me.’ They come from countries close to where I’m from.”

Siakam earned a scholarship across the globe to attend a prep school in Lewisville, Texas. Though a big change, Siakam had examples to follow, in and away from the home. Brothers Boris, Christian and James all preceded Pascal in playing their collegiate ball in the States. And there were also guys like Mbah a Moute and Embiid who not only left Africa to attend U.S. schools, but they also went on to have solid-to-sensational NBA careers.

Not heavily recruited, Pascal made the decision in 2013 to play his collegiate ball at New Mexico State. The move was an emotional one for obvious reasons. But on top of being in a new place without a familiar face, Pascal’s father, Tchamo,

“I think his ball handling and his decision making have improved immensely,” says Marvin Menzies, Siakam’s coach at New Mexico State.

died in a car crash in 2014. Because of issues with his visa, Pascal missed the funeral.

Through the tears, though, he somehow found direction. “A pivotal moment in me that [focused] everything to the game of basketball was when my dad passed away,” says Siakam. “That was a big moment of just me waking up. He was somebody that sacrificed everything for me, put me in position to go to college and play basketball. That just changed the whole trajectory of my career, in terms of my mentality. I had a different purpose. I will work even harder than I ever worked.”

After redshirting his freshman year with the Aggies, Siakam had a dazzling ’14-15 campaign that ended with him earning Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year honors. He was the unanimous WAC Player of the Year the following season.

“He came in with a mission,” says former New Mexico State head coach Marvin Menzies. “A lot of guys’ goal is to

make it to college. Some guys wish they could play beyond and some guys do the things necessary to play beyond college. And that’s what he did. He didn’t just talk about it or want it to happen. He did all of the work and he did it at a high level. He was just wired with a different mentality. And then, when you add in his God-given gifts like his size, the genetics that he had, his quickness and his motor, it was a good recipe.”

His well-rounded play in Las Cruces, New Mexico, caught the eye of scouts some 3,100 miles away in Ontario. The Toronto Raptors would draft Siakam with the 27th selection in the 2016 NBA Draft. And when you think about it, the fit makes some sense. Toronto is a global city, with its population boasting more than 200 ethnic groups and over 140 spoken languages. It’s the perfect place for somebody looking at things with a global gaze like Pascal Siakam.

If only the early days of this new partnership went as planned. Playing the Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners was

Siakam spent a week this summer training and sightseeing in Austria. “I love being in situations where I’m not in my comfort zone,” he says.

Siakam says his father’s death

“changed the trajectory of my career. I had a different purpose.”

Siakam posted All-Star numbers last season, averaging 24 points, 6 assists and 8 rebounds per game. And beyond the box score, he’s known for his suffocating defense.

different from sprinting up and down the court against the Boston Celtics. Like with most rookies, Siakam took some time adjusting to the new pace. A “Did Not Play” here or a four-point outing there was typical on Siakam’s stat sheet his first year. The organization even sent him down to the NBA Developmental League’s Raptors 905. But ever the tireless worker, Siakam won the D-League championship and Finals MVP while he was there.

Things really clicked after that. At the start of the ’18-19 season, Siakam’s dribbling seemed more assured. His cuts to the rim were sharper. He looked calm and focused when squaring up with an opponent in a oneon-one situation. Miraculously, the kid from Douala was starting to get it done.

Siakam was a major reason the 201819 Raptors hoisted the NBA Championship trophy. In fact, of the Raptors’ 24 playoff games that year, Siakam scored at least 18 points in 15 of them. His suffocating defense and the aggressiveness of a famished rottweiler on the boards may not have shown up in box scores, but it all played a part in Siakam being named the league’s Most Improved Player that year.

“I think his ball handling and his decision making have improved immensely,” says Menzies, who’s now the head coach at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “His one-on-one abilities to flip the post and do some things off the bounce [are better]. He’s much more skilled from the perimeter. And there’s a maturity of understanding the game at a higher level compared to when he was new to the country.”

It’s been a mixed bag of results for the Raptors since the confetti fell four years ago. Last season’s ending in the play-in tournament wasn’t expected, especially with Siakam playing at such a high level and young hoopers like O.G. Anunoby and Scottie Barnes balling beyond their years. Toronto head coach Nick Nurse was fired as a result. There were whispers of Siakam leaving.

He calmly shrugs off such gossip. “I never focus on that,” says Siakam, a 2022 All-NBA third-teamer who could score a lucrative contract when he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2024 season. “It’s not a part of my reality. I’m blessed to be in the NBA. I just want to continue to do my job, work hard. I’m focused this summer.

I will just continue to get better as a basketball player. I try to focus on things that are present, that are there. And that’s the only thing I do.”

Siakam perks up once the conversation turns back to young African athletes. Basketball Without Borders, which introduced Siakam to the game many years ago, has long been a catalyst for change by sponsoring showcases around the continent. NBA Academy Africa started in Senegal in 2017, with the aim of spotlighting the region’s best talent in an official training facility. And the Basketball Africa League, which concluded its third season in 2023, is already proving to be a springboard for talent, with 17 of its players making it onto FIBA World Cup rosters.

During the aforementioned L.A. workout, Siakam had his own pleasant run-in with a young player from the NBA Academy. It was a sort of full-circle moment for the superstar. Years prior, he sought the tutelage of veteran player Mbah a Moute. Now, he was the one offering advice to the next generation of global ballers.

“I wish that we can do as much as we can so that it can continue to develop,” says Siakam. “Having kids look at me, look at Joel Embiid and look at all those other African players and think, ‘Man, this guy [Embiid] was just the MVP of the league. We can do it.’ Yeah, I just hope we continue down that path.”

No doubt, Siakam is the perfect person to lead the journey.

Siakam has had an amazing journey from Cameroon to NBA stardom, but he’s not satisfied. “The potential is there,” he says of the young Raptors squad he plans to lead this year.

Now Siakam, a symbol of rising talent from Africa, is offering advice to the next generation.

FALL CLASSICS FALL CLASSICS

American fans of F1 suddenly have two huge grand prix races on home soil in the coming months. Here’s a fun guide to the courses and spectacles on tap in Austin and Las Vegas.

Words JUSTIN HINES Illustration CHRIS RATHBONE

AUSTIN AUSTIN

CIRCUIT GUIDE

CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS

Veteran Daniel Ricciardo, who has started more than 230 Formula 1 races, offers his insider perspective on the key turns on the COTA.

TURN 12

TURN 12

BLEACHERS

TURN 19

“Again, it’s quite hard to pick the apex because of how the track rises and drops, so it’s pretty tricky,” Ricciardo says. “That’s COTA, and I thoroughly enjoy it, so yeah— Texas forever!”

19

TURN

12

TURN 1

“One of the most unique corners on the calendar. It’s super uphill and then blind at the apex, so you don’t really see the corner when you get there,” says Ricciardo. With multiple lines available, Turn 1 is a prime overtaking spot as cars decelerate from approximately 200 mph to 60 mph in just 2.3 seconds. Ricciardo also reckons this is a great place to watch the race. “If you get perched up on the hill at Turn 1, you can nearly see the whole circuit. If there’s racing out of the pits, you’re in the prime seat.”

“This is a really cool corner,” Ricciardo says. “It’s very tight, big braking, but it’s quite banked on the apex, so it kind of sucks you around the corner.” It’s another intense braking zone (and overtaking opportunity), with drivers going from 200 mph to 50 mph.

4

MAIN GRANDSTAND

15 GRANDSTAND

TURN 1 GRANDSTAND

TURN 2 GRANDSTAND

TURN 4

GRANDSTAND

PIT AND PADDOCK

GRAND PLAZA

TURN 9 BLEACHERS

TURN 11

“A tight hairpin and a good place to overtake,” Ricciardo notes. “It’s very wide at the apex, though, and though it allows plenty of room for overtaking, you’ve got the DRS straight afterward. So sometimes you’re better off waiting and pulling off the move cleanly there. Otherwise, if you do it too early, you can get overtaken back.” (DRS is a technology system that reduces drag to promote overtaking in races.) Turn 11 is one of COTA’s big braking points, and in going from close to 185 mph to just 50 mph, drivers undergo 4.7Gs, the highest on the circuit.

A DRIVERS’ GRAND PRIX

The Miami Grand Prix may have sun-soaked bling, while the new race in Las Vegas will have neon-lit glamour, but despite a lack of postNetflix theatrics, F1’s current longest-standing grand prix is a race of rare beauty. The attractiveness of Austin lies in its authenticity. With over a decade of service under its belt and more focus on the track action at the Circuit of the Americas than the sideshows, the race in Texas references the traditions of F1’s classic European circuits.

The top drivers agree. “[Austin] has its own kind of atmosphere,” longtime COTA cheerleader and eight-time grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo told Stephen Colbert last year. “It’s a race I certainly love going to. I’ll probably continue going just as a fan.”

TURNS 3-7

“The circuit drops away into a very fast sequence of ‘esses.’ This is where you really feel an F1 car working,” Ricciardo says. “The downforce kind of wants to throw your body out of the car.” This sequence, inspired by classic corners such as the Maggotts-Becketts complex at Silverstone, is taken at an average speed topping 150 mph, with continuous cornering for over 800 years, one of the longest stretches of cornering on the calendar.

CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS, BY THE NUMBERS

207

THE TOP SPEED (IN MPH) AT COTA IN 2022, REACHED BY ALFA ROMEO’S CHINESE DRIVER, ZHOU GUANYU

3.43

THE LENGTH (IN MILES) OF THE CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS TRACK

1:36.169

RACE LAP RECORD, SET BY CHARLES LECLERC, 36S FASTER THAN THE NASCAR MARK!

5

WINS AT COTA FOR LEWIS HAMILTON, THE MOST OF ANY DRIVER

And for seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, Austin’s circuit sits alongside the iconic circuits he dreamed of as a child. “They don’t make tracks like they did in the olden days,” he once observed. “Some of the new tracks aren’t really that good, but this is one of those that is—it’s got great character.”

Ricciardo agrees. “It’s one of the best circuits we go to on the calendar for racing. You can pass in four different places,” he notes. “Everything just creates a really good atmosphere, which encourages you to battle.”

And away from the track, the Australian is equally enthusiastic about the atmosphere in the city on race weekend. “The extra energy I get from the atmosphere is immeasurable and I love everything about it,” he says. “It’s like nothing else.”

LAS VEGAS LAS VEGAS

VERY HIGH ROLLERS

Is it really any surprise that Las Vegas Grand Prix can put up some extravagant numbers?

F1 has long taken risks, but now the sport has made a big bet—that a race in Vegas will push U.S. interest through the roof. Formula 1, bucking its model of selling hosting fees to promote the race, has sunk over $400 million to build a

home for the sport here. So of course there’s tons of hype. Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, called the race “the biggest event in the world in 2023.” Hyperbole aside, here’s how the numbers stack up.

$1.3 BILLION

How much the Grand Prix is projected to inject into the Las Vegas economy (per data specialists Applied Analysis). That’s more than twice the figure forecast for Super Bowl LVIII, taking place in February at the city’s Allegiant Stadium.

Number of turns in F1’s newest street circuit—if you’re curious, 10 of them left and seven right. Originally, the layout featured just 14 turns, but late last year a chicane was added after Turn 6 and a third new corner, a tight-left hander, added just afterward.

300,000 Square footage of the Pit and Paddock Building, the largest in all of F1. Located on Harmon Avenue and Koval Lane and the length of three football fields, it houses the F1 garages, hospitality suites and the upscale Paddock Club, as well as offices and exhibition spaces.

38 Number of years since a full grand prix has been held on a day other than Sunday. The last time anything other than a Sprint took place on a Saturday was when Nigel Mansell won the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami in 1985.

$5 MILLION Cost of the ritziest hotel package on race weekend. That gets you the Emperor Package from Caesars Entertainment— with five nights in the threebedroom Sky Villa at the Nobu Hotel. Thanks to the 4,700-square-foot terrace, you can invite 75 friends to watch the race. You’ll also get 12 Paddock Club tickets, a chauffeured Rolls-Royce for the weekend and a private dinner for 12 prepared by famed chef Nobu Matsuhisa.

PIT AND PADDOCK 3 4 14

LASVEGASBLVD

17 16 15

212 Expected top speed in racing (in mph). With three big straights and only a few slow corners, this track is going to be fast. And drivers reckon that in qualifying, that top speed might climb to 230 mph. Teams will run shallow rear wings to minimize drag and maximize outright speed on the straightaways.

315,000

Total number of expected fans for the weekend. It’s a huge number but still a bit short of the 480,000 achieved by this year’s British Grand Prix.

166 Number of days it took to repave all the streets that compose the Las Vegas Strip Circuit. The first road closures, on Sands Avenue, took place in early April, and the final works from the Sphere site back to Sands Avenue were completed in September.

3.803

Length (in miles) of the Las Vegas Strip Circuit. It’s the third-longest circuit currently used in F1 (Belgium’s SpaFrancorchamps track is the longest). In designing the Vegas track, F1 considered more than 30 layouts before deciding on this course.

SEE

IT IN STYLE!

If you want to experience the Las Vegas Grand Prix like a VIP, there’s no more premium option than the Red Bull Energy Station. Positioned for a perfect view of Turn 3, the striking trackside complex offers three levels of entertainment and exhilaration— including a supper club, a rooftop nightclub zone and tiered balconies offering stately panoramas of the track and the Las Vegas skyline. Of course there’s DJ entertainment, an open bar and premium cuisine, as well as one-of-a-kind appearances by F1 drivers and top Red Bull athletes. Scan the QR code below to learn more.

HARMON AVE

RED BULL ENERGY STATION

THE WORLD OF RED BULL AT THE FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN SILVER LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX

FORMULA 1 RETURNS TO LAS VEGAS NOVEMBER 16–18, 2023. Be there to experience the excitement and exhilaration of racing through the heart of Las Vegas from inside the Red Bull Energy Station or from the Oracle Red Bull Racing Grandstands.

SCAN THE QR CODE TO LEARN MORE AND PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS

Whether you’re an F1 high roller or a late-night partier, Vegas has it all.

DAY AND NIGHT

Sun worshippers and night owls alike find revelry in Las Vegas.

Words CARLY FISHER

Alush, glass-encased botanical garden filled with a towering display of stunning technicolor arrangements isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Las Vegas, but it shouldn’t surprise you, either.

After all, Las Vegas is a city of paradoxes. It’s both unlike anywhere else and also intensely familiar—dripping in decadence while projecting a kitschy strip-mall-ofAmerica vibe filled with a bunch of wacky sideshow attractions. Unapologetically loud, ostentatious—and a little surreal—it’s an oasis in

the desert no matter how you experience it. And after three days of partying and pursuing all sorts of hijinks, you’re going to feel grateful that you remembered that tip to go to the Conservatory at Bellagio. It’s going to feel so nice and gentle on that sunburned, slightly hungover face of yours.

To reach this place, you must first embark on a journey filled with long days and even longer nights. This is the place where anything can happen: wandering into an existential store where nothing is real, tying the knot at a punk rock wedding chapel, or somehow

getting whisked into a Formula 1 VIP party at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, where the sparkler-lit bottle service flows freely and the concept of money simply just disappears (figuratively and literally).

Stranger things have happened, but here are some things you can plan for on your next trip to Sin City.

DAY TRIPPERS

Casinos still rule the Strip, but the scorching heat of the Mojave Desert has inspired a new wave of aquatic dayclubs where each option seems even bigger than the last: bigger sound systems, bigger pools, bigger entertainment.

Find the beautiful people dancing to resident DJs like Eric D-Lux, Mustard and Bob Moses at the Marquee Dayclub at the Cosmopolitan, a sprawling 22,000-squarefoot, multilevel complex featuring two pools, several bars and a world-class sound system. Sports fans who need to be physically ripped from the game will feel right at home at the new Stadium Swim at the Circa Las Vegas, offering six pools and a

massive 40-foot-high television screen showing every single game imaginable. Tiesto and Kaskade are typically after-after hours headliners, but in Vegas, they’re spinning poolside in the afternoons at the Ayu Day Club at Resorts World Casino.

Not really into the club scene? Ditch the Strip and kick it with the locals in the up-and-coming downtown Arts District, where you’ll find a smattering of galleries, shops, brewpubs, coffee shops and restaurants. Cement your visit to the Punk Rock Museum by getting a tattoo or getting eloped at the chapel there. Find cool restaurants, streetwear brands, a mystical crystal shop and a decent cup of coffee in a converted vintage motel at Ferguson’s Downtown. Take refuge from the sun by ducking into the part exhibition, part archive, and part studio space of Office of Collecting and Design, a veritable cabinet of curiosities nestled within New Orleans Square, where you can pop in for a visit or book a scavenger hunt or photo session. The collection is curated by artist and filmmaker Jessica Oreck.

FLY BY NIGHT

Sunset brings the flickering glow of Las Vegas’s famous neon lights illuminating the Strip. This is when things get interesting—and even a little weird. There’s no need to get lost in search of the infamous salt flats of Groom Lake, the location of Area 51—after all, the enticing entertainment and events district AREA15 is so much cooler (and also easier to get to). Here you’ll find Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart, a fake store with fake products leading into a multilevel immersive art exhibit; Lost Spirits Distillery, an engaging Las Vegas show and distillery tour; and Haley’s Comet, the world’s first dual-

Find the beautiful people—plus resident DJs like Eric D-Lux, Mustard and Bob Moses—at the Marquee Dayclub,

The Conservatory at Bellagio: a botanical oasis.

track rollerglider. In October, Meow Wolf transforms into a spooky island for scAREA15 Halloween 2023, a six-hour party packed with ravers, cosplayers and nine DJs spinning across three stages.

If you’re going to enjoy a residency, go to Caesars Palace, where Adele, Jerry Seinfeld and the adults-only variety show Absinthe all have shows under the same roof. The Wynn comes in a close second, with performances by Ali Wong, Jim Gaffigan and the mythical aerial puppetry show Awakening. Five-level megaclub Hakkasan at the MGM Grand is consistently ranked among the top Vegas nightclubs, featuring 80,000 square feet of dance floor, plus state-of-the-art sound systems and LED lighting, where Steve Aoki, Benny Benassi and Fat Joe are among the resident DJs. Find some of hip-hop’s finest—Rick Ross, Gucci Mane, 2Chains, Quavo, Wiz Khalifa and Meek Mills—at Drai’s, a 70,000-square-foot rooftop club with more than 150 VIP tables, eight pools, two VIP balconies, four bars, over 7,000 square feet of cutting-edge digital LED screens—and a partridge in a pear tree.

EAT

In a city where Food Network stars’ restaurants rule and visiting Michelin legends is a pilgrimage, Sparrow + Wolf is a promising, globally inspired restaurant in Chinatown, proving that Vegas chefs can stand on their own. Universally recognized as among the top 50 best bars in the world, Herbs and Rye makes a damn fine drink (and pretty great steaks). Fried chicken is having a moment at places like Kowbird, whose signature Southern-style buttermilk fried chicken sandwich is served every which way. Meanwhile, Half Bird, the Sparrow + Wolf spinoff chicken concept, delivers even more flavor-forward riffs, including everything from green curry ranch and yuzu hot honey to miso barbecue and scallion ginger. When it’s time to break out the “nice clothes” for dinner, get fancy and try to get a reservation at Delilah Lounge at Wynn, where you can live like a Gatsby zillionaire. Inspired by the Vegas showrooms of the ’50s, this instantly iconic supper club features a menu of classic surf ’n’ turf, plus live music and

special performances, DJs and Sunday night jazz.

If visiting a celeb restaurant is a must, dining at Restaurant Guy Savoy at Caesars Palace, Joël Robuchon Restaurant at the MGM Grand or Bazaar Meat by José Andrés at the Sahara are all sufficiently braggable achievements. Keep an eye out for openings from award-winning restaurant LPM Restaurant & Bar at the Cosmopolitan and James Beard Award winner Michael Mina’s Orla at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, which are among the hot ones to watch.

SLEEP IT OFF

If you’re staying out late, you might as well stay within close crashing distance. Fortunately, most hotels offer the best of all worlds 24/7.

Virgin Hotels are always a vibe, but their Las Vegas outpost offers a surprisingly

quirky entertainment schedule (Band of Horses? Danzig? The Postal Service and M83? A John Waters Christmas show?!), on view within steps of Nobu. Staying at any of the new Resorts World Casino hotels (Conrad, Hilton or Crockfords) puts you in reach of the Resorts World Theatre, where Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are all set to perform this year.

Coming later this year: the highly anticipated Fontainebleau Las Vegas, a massive 67-story megaresort and casino offshoot of the famed Miami Beach luxury hotel, joining the forthcoming Durango Casino & Resort, which opens this November, featuring 83,000 square feet of casino space, a state-of-theart sports book and more than 200 hotel rooms.

Get a tattoo—or get hitched!—at the Punk Rock Museum in the Arts District.

Order up globally inspired cuisine at Sparrow + Wolf in Chinatown.

At the Virgin Hotel, enjoy good vibes and a quirky entertainment schedule.

MGM, MARQUEE DAY CLUB, LISA JOHNSON, SABIN ORR, HILTON

Do it

“When I was young, I never thought I would be where I am today,” says Ethell, who now has seven world titles to her name.

Meagan Ethell reveals how she trains for wakeboarding’s high-speed acrobatics.

Words JEN SEE

Wakeboarder Meagan Ethell spends a lot of time upside down. During high-speed contest runs, she performs various intricate tricks, with names like KGB, Fruit Loop and Scare Crow. Each trick combines a dizzying blend of flips and twists. “I have to be fearless,” she says. Success in competition requires strength and flexibility—as well as a laser-sharp mental focus.

Since she fell in love with the sport at age 8, Ethell has developed into one of the world’s best. “I have always loved being in the water, and when I started learning, doing tricks was really fun,” she says. Ethell brought

a keen air awareness from gymnastics, which accelerated her learning process on the water. At age 15, she won the Rookie of the Year award from Wakeboarding magazine.

Since then, she has won seven world titles and been named Female Rider of the Year six times. She recently scored her first magazine cover (from Copycatsclub, which covers women’s wakeboarding), and through her Let Her Rip campaign, Ethell is working to bring more women into wakeboarding. “I feel like if I’d just believed in myself a little bit more, I might have gotten here faster,” she admits. Now 26, Ethell looks to have arrived just in time.

“I HAVE TO BE FEARLESS” TRAIN LIKE A PRO

NEW TRICKS

“I’m on the water fipping every day”

“When I was younger and learning all the inverts, then adding spins to inverts, I did a lot of trampoline training. That played a big role in my comfort with flipping and doing tricks. Now I don’t do trampoline training, because I’m out on the water flipping every day. I’m comfortable being upside down. When I’m learning new tricks, I dedicate a lot of time to visualizing. Then I go out on the water to dial in the fundamentals. If it’s an inverted trick, I want the invert itself to feel good, and the takeoff to feel consistent every time.”

GYM CIRCUITS

“Holding on to a rope and handle, I already do a lot of pulling with my upper body. So I mostly do my strength training in the offseason. For leg strength, I do jump squats and box jumps. I do lots of functional training, where I use a weighted bar and move it through multiple positions. I also like group classes, because I’m so competitive. If I see a friend pushing themselves, I have to do it, too. Most of my gym workouts are circuits, mixing strength and cardio. Cardio is important, because there’s so little time between tricks.”

MENTAL FOCUS

“I do a lot of visualizing”

“During a contest I do two passes, and on each pass I get four tricks. I don’t get a practice run, so I have to have my mind in a good space before I go out there. I work with a sports psychologist to help prepare. I do a lot of visualizing and positive self-talk. I also do breathing exercises and meditation. With each trick, I have a few things I tell myself that help me land it every time. When I’m visualizing, I tell myself those things in my head and picture how I’m going to do the trick out on the water.”

SELF-CARE

“For warm-up, I love flowing through different yoga poses, like downward dog, up dog and child pose. I also like a stretch where I do a lunge with one hand on the ground and slowly raise my other arm, stretching my hip flexors. I usually ride three days in a row, then take a day off. A lot of the impact goes to my lower back and my hips, because I’m usually in a squat position and exploding with my legs. After workouts, I stretch, foam roll and take an ice bath. I also find laying with a lacrosse ball on my hip flexors helps me recover.”

NUTRITION

“I love cooking, and I try to eat really clean. I buy organic, grass-fed meat, and I pay attention to the types of oils I consume. For dinner, I like to make grilled chicken with a rice and vegetable mix. I make pesto and pour it over the rice with some Parmesan cheese. Sometimes I’ll make a banana, peanut butter and cocoa powder smoothie with oats, almost like a dessert smoothie. GoMacro bars are my go-to snack for travel.”

“I do cardio and strength training”

“I like to foam roll and take ice baths”

PARTNERS IN TIME

Hundredths of a second can make all the difference in the America’s Cup. So when Alinghi Red Bull Racing sought an official timepiece, it called for a watchmaker that ticked like the team.

It’s the pinnacle of yacht racing, drawing the world’s greatest sailing teams. But beneath all the glitz, drama, action and emotion, the America’s Cup is actually something far simpler.

“It’s an innovation race,” says Adolfo Carrau, design coordinator at Alinghi Red Bull Racing, one of the teams entering next year’s 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona. “In a sense, the fastest boat always wins.”

Every team races an AC75 foiling monohull—a 75-foot sailing boat that can, thanks to hydrofoils mounted beneath the hull, literally fly above the water. Some requirements are the same for all teams—the height of the mast, size of the sails, foils and blades—but beyond that, anything goes.

“We’re constantly pushing the envelope,” says Carrau. “We design and engineer 90 percent of what goes on board.” Carbon-fiber and composite pieces are custom 3D-printed; stainless steel and titanium features, too. “Apart from paint and some hardware, few things are commercially available.”

Any partner to the team needs to bring that same high standard to the table. So when it came to an official watch for Alinghi Red Bull Racing, there was only one choice: Tudor. The Swiss

watchmaker has a rich history in diving watches, and its Pelagos FXD—originally made for specialist units of the French Navy—is a benchmark in this field.

Shared philosophy

With 200-meter water resistance, Pelagos FXD watches feature square hour markers and Tudor’s signature “Snowflake” hands, with large luminescent surfaces for maximum legibility. The “FXD” refers to the fixed strap bars built into the case lugs, meaning there’s zero chance of the watch strap becoming unexpectedly detached. This proved the perfect starting template for the Tudor Pelagos FXD “Alinghi Red Bull Racing Edition.”

Released in two designs, “Time-Only” and “Chrono,” the latter is the first time Tudor has used a chronograph—a stopwatch in the main dial— for one of its fixed-strap-bar

watches. The bi-directional bezel is titanium, the caseback stainless steel, and the case itself is built from a proprietary carbon composite made from carbon fibers and elements the watchmaker is “keeping secret.” These same three materials are used extensively in the AC75 itself.

“In this sport, victory comes by fusing daring human spirit with cutting-edge technology,” Tudor explains. “By combining a high-tech carbon composite with titanium and stainless steel, which is another first for Tudor, the watches celebrate a partnership born out of this philosophy.”

This symbiosis between team and timepiece runs deep. The 0.86-inch-wide, single-piece fabric strap, woven from jacquard ribbon on 19th-century French looms, comes in Alinghi Red Bull Racing “Team Blue” with red accents. Those team colors are matched on the dial, which

“IN A SENSE, THE FASTEST BOAT ALWAYS WINS.”

Adolfo Carrau, design coordinator

THE BOAT

The Alinghi Red Bull Racing AC75 on the Mediterranean Sea near Barcelona.

Crew members wear the new watch aboard the team’s AC75.

also features a subtle “Alinghi Red Bull Racing” motif above the face between 10 and 2.

Precision launch

Next year, as the minutes count down to the race start —that critical time when the boats jostle at low speeds, preparing to hurtle up to the 40 knots required to, literally, take off—you can be sure those final seconds will be ticking on Tudor Pelagos FXD “Alinghi Red Bull Racing Edition” watches strapped to the wrists of some of the world’s greatest sailors.

tudorwatch.com

Carbon

The mast and hull of the AC75 are made of carbon fiber. The watch case is made from a carbon composite material.

Steel

This is what the back of the watch case is made from—the same as the hydrofoil blade and fixtures on the AC75 deck.

Titanium

The material used for the bezel of the watch as well as the hydrofoil wings of the boat.

THE WATCH

Tudor’s Pelagos FXD “Alinghi Red Bull Racing Edition” comes in a chronograph (pictured) and a “Time-Only” design.

“THE WATCH IS A PARTNERSHIP OF SHARED PHILOSOPHY.”

Tudor

WHOLE-GRAIN GOODNESS

Wooden accents elevate two of our favorite things— music and coffee—to a higher level.

Words PETER FLAX

BANG & OLUFSEN

BEOSOUND BALANCE

Don’t let the minimalist, sculptural aesthetics fool you— this is a meticulously engineered smart speaker. It contains seven distinct drivers and amplifiers that can project 360-degree sound and has software that can read the shape of a room and retune itself to optimize acoustics. And it’s Google Voice enabled, so you can play your favorite tunes hands-free. But don’t be surprised by your urge to touch the solid natural oak base or the patterned, backlit aluminum layer; the Beosound Balance is a multisensory work of art. $2,949; bang-olufsen.com

ANDOVER-ONE RECORD PLAYER

Normally, putting a turntable, speakers and an amplifier all in one cabinet will not yield audiophile quality, but this is not a normal piece of engineering. Inside the genuine hardwood enclosure, which has throwback midcentury vibes, are several patentpending technologies that allow the unit to generate precise and room-thumping audio without creating

It’s a high-end turntable, amplifier and speaker system living in harmony inside one lovely midcentury enclosure.

RATIO EIGHT COFFEE MAKER

As hardcore coffee fanatics know, making a truly perfect pour-over requires precision and careful technique. But this handsome machine—with striking walnut or parawood accents and a handblown carafe—can effortlessly match the work of the most skilled barista. The elegantly simple one-button operation belies a nerdy symphony of technology inside, including a die-cast aluminum heating element that keeps water at the

FLAIR 58 ESPRESSO PRESS

If you want to get super serious about making consistently perfect espresso without spending thousands, this surprisingly sophisticated manual espresso press will allow you to make café-quality shots in your kitchen. The hardwood accents give the machine an old-world touch, but the features— including an electric thermal control unit, a professional-grade portafilter and an integrated pressure gauge—are carefully engineered to work together and make sure every shot is absolutely glorious. From $580; flairespresso.com

This manual wonder is proof that you don’t have to spend thousands to make consistently perfect espresso.

ANATOMY OF GEAR

A revolutionary ski binding, deconstructed.

Words KELLY BASTONE

Marker innovated and implemented nearly 30 patents to develop the Cruise—a lightweight, easy-to-

SIMPLE STEP

The step-in toe eliminates the need for awkward forward bends or futzy boot alignment.

MATERIAL INNOVATION

Using generative engineering (a form of computer modeling also used to build airplane seats), Marker analyzed which binding parts undergo the most stress over time. These locations at the toe and heel feature ultra-strong, bio-based plastic sourced from castor bean oil. Others use post-industrial recycled plastic.

Starting at $600; markerbindings.com

ADJUSTABLE RELEASE

Marker pioneered an internal sliding lever that allows the user to adjust the vertical and horizontal release settings—a safety feature most lightweight touring bindings can’t claim.

TWO VERSIONS

The Cruise 10 ($600) offers release force (DIN) settings from 4 to 10; the Cruise 12 ($650) spans DIN 6 to 12 for heavier or more aggressive skiers. Both are available in two brake widths (90 mm or 105 mm) to accommodate skinny or mid-fat skis.

GREEN, PART 1

Made of 85 percent sustainable materials, the Cruise saves an annual 20 tons of carbon—comparable to the air-scrubbing effect of 4,200 trees.

GREEN, PART 2

Touch points at the heel and toe are colored green for easy identification.

MINDFULLY MIDWEIGHT

Neither overbuilt nor ultralight, the Cruise weighs in at 475 grams (brake included), balancing uphill ease with downhill control.

THE CRUISE IS CONSTRUCTED FROM 85 PERCENT SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS. THAT’S AN INDUSTRY FIRST.

THE RED BULLETIN WORLDWIDE

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The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This month’s Austrian edition features Greek tennis star Stefanos Tsitsipas, who’s currently ranked No. 7 in the world.

For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to redbulletin.com.

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Thomas Hutterer (manager), Michael Baidinger, Franz Fellner, Ines Gruber, Moritz Philipp Haaf, Wolfgang Kröll, Gabriele MatijevicBeisteiner, Yvonne Mensik, Alfred Minassian, Nicole Okasek-Lang, Britta Pucher, Nicole Umsait, Johannes Wahrmann-Schär, Ellen Wittmann-Sochor, Ute Wolker, Christian Wörndle, Sabine Zölß

Marco Nicoli, marco.nicoli@goldbach.com

THE RED BULLETIN

United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894

Editor Ruth McLeod

Chief Sub-Editor

Davydd Chong

Country Project Management

Ollie Stretton

Media Sales

Mark Bishop, mark.bishop@redbull.com

Action highlight

Falling into place

It may look like Canadian rider Brett Rheeder is plunging to his death, but this is a relatively tame drop at Red Bull Rampage. After a three-year absence from the competition due to a broken femur, the former Rampage champion stood at the top of the podium again in 2022. His flawless line earned him a 90.66 score to lock his second Rampage win. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get back to this level of riding,” Rheeder said at the time. “I just want to make sure whatever I do is for me. Not for any sponsors, not for my competitors, not for any ego. I want to make sure it’s for guiding the sport in the right direction and having a good time while doing it.” redbull.com/rampage

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