Eduardo Bandeira

I’m probably the only freestyle skater in my city, and I am definitely the only freestyle skater that I know in Brazil that is also a doctor. I graduated in Medicine at the Escolar Bahiana de Medicina e Saude Publica in 1998 and I was the resident Ophthalmologist at the University of Sao Paulo. Now I have my own private practice in the city of Salvador that is in the Northeastern part of Brazil. I have also been taking courses and plan to become a Harbour Pilot this next year.

Although I have been skating for some 30 years it wasn’t until about 5 years ago while I was an ophthalmologist for the Brazilian Army in Rio de Janeiro that I got turned on to freestyle. While in Rio I met Tai Tai, Edmar, and Lucio Flavio among others, then I went to Sao Paulo and skated with Per Canguru and several other great freestylers that inspired me. I also watched a lot of videos especially the old videos with Rodney Mullen, Pierre Andre, Kevin Harris, Per Welinder, Bob Smeltzer, Primo Desiderio, and Don Brown, who are my mentors, and all have such fluid skating styles. Generally I try to practice almost every day around 2 hours at night after work. I love to put on rock and roll music and sorta dance with my skateboard, doing a lot of footwork and maneuvers. I had a great experience at last years World Round-Up and have been skating almost every day getting ready for this years Round-Up. Today I just can’t imagine myself without skating. I started skating in the eighties and I hope I can skate for another 30 years at least.

2016 World Freestyle Round-Up: 8th Place Amateur
2016 Big Rio Freestyle Contest: 5th Place Amateur