NIKE SB SENDS SIX RIDERS TO CPH OPEN'S BIARRITZ STOP

Hugo Boserup grew up carving Copenhagen's harbor bowls a decade before Nike SB ever paid him to skate. This week he is riding a stretch of coastline on the Bay of Biscay, one of six Nike SB team riders the brand sent south for the newest stop on Copenhagen Open's 2026 tour: Biarritz, France.

Nike SB does not own Copenhagen Open. It never has. What the brand owns right now is six passports that just landed on the same beach, and that is the leverage that actually matters here.

Hugo Boserup Is the Only Rider Actually From Copenhagen

Of the six riders Nike SB tagged in Biarritz, only Boserup, 28, was actually born in Copenhagen, the city Copenhagen Open is named for. He grew up building terrain parks in Denmark, later consulted for skatepark builder Rune Glifberg's company Lykke, and eventually relocated to Malibu, California, where he now rides for Nike SB, Ace Trucks and Spitfire.

The other five riders come from four different countries. Georgia Martin, a Toy Machine pro who moved from Charlotte to Long Beach, and Poe Pinson, the Fernandina Beach skater who placed fifth in women's street at the 2024 Paris Olympics, cover the American side. Karsten Kleppan skates out of Oslo, Norway. Toby Ryan, 22, rides out of Carlsbad, California. Filmer t_huff shot the trip.

Karsten Kleppan and Oskar Rozenberg Skated the Same Nordic Winters

Kleppan and Rozenberg both learned to skate through the same short Nordic outdoor season, and Nike SB just put both of them on a beach roughly 1,900 miles south of home. Kleppan built his style on Oslo's concrete architecture and landed a part in Nike SB Chronicles Volume 3. Rozenberg, who goes by Oski, came up through Bryggeriet, the skateboarding high school in Malmo, Sweden, and turned that education into his own signature Dunk and Blazer capsule in December 2019.

Nike SB tapped that same Nordic pipeline again on July 21, when Beyond Store's 20th anniversary Dunk landed in Finland with graphics pulled from a 1930s Alvar Aalto pool. A five country roster on a French beach two weeks later is not a coincidence. It is a European push the brand is funding one plane ticket at a time.

August 8 in Getxo Is Where the Tour Actually Ends

Biarritz is not the destination. It is a stop on the way to Getxo, Spain, where Copenhagen Open's 2026 tour closes Saturday, August 8, at La Kantera skatepark in Arrigunaga. Getxo has not hosted an international skate championship in eight years, and organizers are bringing more than 40 professional skaters from Australia, Sweden, Chile, France and Japan for a day built around a pool contest at 3pm, banks and half pipe at 5pm, and best trick finals at 7pm, before a DJ set closes the night at 9.

The route getting there runs through Bordeaux, Biarritz, Bilbao and Basauri, a stretch of the French and Basque coastline Copenhagen Open has never covered in a single edition before.

Copenhagen Open Has Skipped Copenhagen Before

Copenhagen Open has left its own city before, and Nike SB paid for the move each time. The 2024 edition skipped Denmark entirely, running through Berlin, Munich and Milan before finishing in Athens, a route built around Olympic host cities rather than the festival's birthplace.

The festival itself is independent. A crew of filmmakers, photographers and skatepark builders founded it in 2007, and no single sponsor's name sits in the title. What Nike SB owns is a seat at the table, the same seat it bought in Detroit for the revived Tennis Classic three weeks earlier, when five team riders including Elissa Steamer and Shane O'Neill spent three days proving a 2005 shoe still works on real terrain. Biarritz is Nike SB's second team trip in three weeks, and the formula repeats both times: borrow somebody else's stage, put current riders on it, let the footage sell the shoe.

Forget the Bracket. This Is a Retention Play.

Forget the bracket. There is no world tour ranking riding on Biarritz and no championship on the line for Nike SB's team, just six riders staying visible on a beach that belongs to nobody's roster. Copenhagen Open runs an actual contest at every stop, pool, banks, half pipe, best trick, but for a signed rider the format matters less than the footage that comes home.

Adidas Skateboarding chose the opposite move the same week, quietly restocking Nora Vasconcellos's signature shoe in chalk white rather than sending anyone anywhere. One brand spent a plane ticket. The other spent a factory run. Both are retention plays. Only one shows up on a map.

Getxo gets the pool contest and the DJ set Saturday. Biarritz just got the marketing. Six riders, five countries, one Nike Swoosh, and Boserup skating the only city that actually shares the event's name. Expect Nike SB to keep running this play at every Copenhagen Open stop until the roster gets deep enough that it stops needing the invite.