Rockstar Energy Open brings world’s top skateboarders — and one Seattle teen — to Portland

UPDATE — Aug. 16, 2025: Nels “Gnarls” Rosen achieved fifth place in the qualifiers and earned a spot in Saturday’s Men’s Street Semifinal to compete against the pros.

Original story below:

Some of the biggest skateboarders in the world will be shredding and grinding at Portland waterfront this week as part of the Rockstar Energy Open. Among the nearly 100 competitors is two-time Olympic gold medalist Keegan Palmer.

But 20 are amateur skateboarders who were picked via video submission.

One of them is 14-year-old Seattleite Nels “Gnarls” Rosen, who is returning for the second year.

Rosen, who wants to be a pro skateboarder, has amassed a social media following for his gnarly skateboard tricks, many of which are shot on “DadCam” by Steve Rosen. “He’s just an awesome hype man and manager,” said Rosen of his dad.

Nels Rosen actually started skating, at 6 years old, because of his father.

“He started skating and he got me into it and he’s like, ‘Get your sister’s board.’ And I just started skating that way. It was the best in the world. I loved it,” said Rosen.

Steve Rosen said his son out-skilled him years ago. “Oh, I’m not even close anymore,” he said. “I just sit back and watch.”

Rosen trains about four hours a day and does about seven contests a year. Sometimes that means fitting in schoolwork while traveling. While the Olympics and turning pro is a dream, Rosen doesn’t worry too much about strategy. He just wants to skate.

“I have no clue how the scoring works or anything,” he said, “But I know if you put together a really solid line and land all your tricks and good hard tricks, then I think you’ll get placed higher.”

For him, the best part about skateboarding isn’t winning contests, it’s having a rad group of people to hang out with. “All the friends and stuff is the best. The community of skateboarding is awesome,” said Rosen.

One of his best tricks was in Vancouver, Canada, at “Go Skateboarding Day” this June, where he jumped, or “ollied”, down two flights of stairs with hundreds of people watching.

“Honestly, that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Rosen said. “It’s probably about 13 or 14 feet high and 20 feet long and it was so scary.”

He looked fearless, though, as he sailed through the crowd and came to a stop with everyone cheering for him. “I just did it and I did it first try luckily, or I probably would’ve been hurt,” Rosen said.

Steve Rosen said the stress is worth it to see his son having fun and to have such a tight connection with his child.

“I didn’t ever have a dad around when I was young, so I just try to have as much fun with my kids as I can,” said Steve Rosen. “To share something we both have in common and love for is really awesome.”

Rosen does get bruised from skating, but that doesn’t stop him from trying harder and harder tricks. “We just take it in stride and just have fun, and he constantly is looking for stuff to push himself, and I just support him,” said Rosen.

Skateboarding isn’t just a sport for the Rosens. “it’s actually a lifestyle,” said Steve Rosen.

“As a skateboarder, everything starts to become skateable. And the better you get at the different obstacles, you could have something on your block that you didn’t see your whole life, and then all of a sudden you unlock the level of skating and now you’re like, ‘oh, I’m going to go skate that.’”

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While Steve Rosen thinks it would be really cool if his son got to go professional or make the Olympic team, “to be dead serious, I would want him to just grow up to be a good person,” he said.

“There’s always going to be contests. But making the friends and the memories when you get older, you get to think back on all that stuff and you just had a lot of fun and live life. So skateboarding’s awesome,” he said.

While just skating in a prestigious pro-am competition like the Rockstar Energy Open is already a big deal for 14-year-old Rosen, if he places among the top five amateur skaters, he’ll get a chance to compete in the final against the best in the world.

There’s also a $230,000 prize money pool for competitors.

Rosen, and other skateboarders, will compete all weekend at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland at Rockstar Energy Open. Admission to see the skaters is free, and the event will be livestreamed.