Former Modesto skater Torres sobers up, returns to X Games podium

Disaster: A trick performed when a skater stalls on the lip of an object with their skateboard, with the point of contact between both trucks.

“Disaster” is a term that easily could define professional skateboarder Vanessa Torres’ fall from grace.

Virtually exiled from the X Games three years ago, the three-time Street medalist often found herself in the bottom of a bottle.

“It was an interesting situation for me,” Torres said, speaking by phone from the back porch of her Los Angeles home, clutching her morning coffee, “because I had dedicated so much of my life to skating.”

From that disaster came another, a “backside disaster” signaling a career renaissance and life revival.

The former Modesto resident took a running start, hopped on her board and sailed onto the course at last weekend’s X Games Austin (Texas).

She kicked onto the flat bar, opening with a crooked grind, and then closed with a backside disaster, rotating 180 degrees at the top of a quarter pipe before planting her board on the coping.

Just like that, the original queen of the Street was back. Back in the national spotlight. Back in an X Games final. Back on the podium.

“You can call her a legend,” the ESPN commentator said.

A legend, indeed, one born of unmatched triumph and a familiar struggle.

‘Testing waters’ for women everywhere

The highs have been incredible for 28-year-old Torres, a high school dropout who left Modesto to chase her dream in Los Angeles.

Skateboarding has given her a career and a brand, Hollywood connections, and it’s allowed her to open doors for women on wheels everywhere.

When Torres climbed the X Games podium for the first time in 2003, she didn’t kick down a door locked only to her. She cleared an entire city block for every action sport hopeful without the Y chromosome.

She is the first woman to win X Games gold, but she won’t be the last – and in her heart of hearts, that is the ultimate reward.

“When I won gold, it was a huge event for female skateboarding. That was the first time the X Games had a woman’s event. It was about testing the waters,” she said. “It could have easily never become what it is now.

“Being as young as I was, being 17, it was a really big deal for my career, too. It’s what started my career. That will always be what that is for me – the start.”

By that measure, Torres was determined to make X Games Austin her restart. More than a decade after her historic run, Torres once again scaled the medal stand at skateboarding’s premier event.

On the first of three runs in the final, Torres, wearing black calf-high socks and a lock of hair in her eyes, slid back and forth across the rails and hung on the coping to the delight of the judges and fans.

She completed her collection that afternoon, adding bronze to her gold in 2003 and silver in 2004. The bronze doesn’t shine nearly as bright as the others, but her smile does.

“For me, personally, it was probably the most rewarding medal,” Torres said. “Coming as far as I’ve come, and to still be able to put something together and have it be as rewarding as it was, showing everybody that I still got it ...

“That was my best highlight in many years.”

Fighting the monster within

Torres has been chasing that high since she was a teen ripping up skateparks and open spaces in Modesto and Ceres, but she admits that dogged pursuit – the loose and sometimes reckless lifestyle of a skateboarder – nearly ruined her.

Torres is a recovering alcoholic. She battles the constant urges and temptations associated with addiction, praying they’ll pass before her will breaks, because she knows the monster that lurks inside.

“She’s not a really happy drunk, so she tends to be a messy drunk. She’s not someone you want to be around when she’s had too much to drink,” her mother Dolores Sarenana said. “She’s a perfectly charming and articulate person and wonderful to be around when she’s sober. If she’s had too much to drink, though, she turns into a different person.”

Alcohol is attached to many of Torres’ memories. It is a part of her, she says, the same way trucks and wheels are a part of a skateboard. The two were introduced to one another early in her career, and like a bad relationship, they have abused one another.

“Partying comes with the lifestyle and not everyone’s looking out for your best interest,” Torres said. “You get caught up in the scene. I was young and influenced a great deal.”

Alcohol has put her in some compromising positions.

After nine consecutive X Games appearances (2003-11), Torres was removed from the invite list and made an alternate for a contest she helped put on the map. For female skateboarders, the X Games is their meal ticket. Torres’ bronze came with a purse of $15,000.

“That’s where we make our money,” she said. “We look forward to these contests because it could be potentially what we live off the rest of the year.”

The face of women’s skateboarding was fading from the limelight, bumped off the A-list and tossed back into a sea of hopefuls.

Booze had robbed her of most of her mornings, put her career at risk and threatened to undermine all the years she had spent championing women’s skateboarding.

Finding ‘flow’ in time for X Games

Torres was careening toward a rock bottom when ...

“I had an epiphany and realized that I have no control of my life while under the influence of alcohol,” she said. “I had a revelation and felt that was something I needed to take control of. I have my moments when I do want a drink, but I’m grateful those moments have passed quickly. It’s a constant struggle, but I’m glad I’m making progress.”

Torres sobered up shortly before X Games Austin, promising herself another high – one without the hangover.

She can’t remember being so lucid or connected to a Street course as she was in Austin. She scouted the obstacles and identified her “flow,” as she calls it. She choreographed her tricks and went to bed the night before the contest clear-minded and confident.

No nightcap necessary.

“I skated my heart out,” she said. “These past few weeks, I’ve been skating well. I’ve been amped up and feeling positive because I don’t have this substance hindering my potential. I’m waking up earlier. I’m happier. And I really, really think that came out in this year’s X Games. This contest, I really feel like I won.”

Torres immediately called her family back in Modesto, where a small party gathered to watch X Games Austin.

With tears in her eyes, Sarenana congratulated her daughter for her resiliency and strength. The medal was the cherry on top.

“She had a world of opportunity in front of her when she was younger and at the height of her career. She was No. 1 in the world and she let it all slip away from her, without being mature enough to recognize the opportunity,” Sarenana said. “We had to let her make mistakes because we had no control over it. It hurt us all to watch her throw things away, but seeing her come back and hit the podium, it validates her talent.”

Sobriety has given Torres spark again. Never has the path beneath her wheels seemed so smooth; never has her direction in life seemed so certain.

Torres has been sober for exactly a month now. She attended her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on Tuesday, and she’s weathered the urges that have tried to lure her back down the rabbit hole.

She can’t promise she’ll remain sober – addicts live with that uncertainty – but this 28-year-old trailblazer understands she’s not alone. In skateboarding or her sobriety.

Torres is grateful to those who have cheered her and defended her when she couldn’t find the strength or the words. Today, she’s committed to be her very best in all facets of her life – for herself, for her family in Modesto, her team in Southern California, and for women’s skateboarding worldwide.

“That’s the fire that keeps me going,” Torres said.

With this new-found energy and mental clarity, Torres hopes to pioneer another breakthrough for women’s skateboarding. She is shopping a reality TV show and negotiations, she says, have intensified since her bronze in Austin.

“I feel as though we’ve been hidden in the shadows for so long,” Torres said. “It’s time we take matters into our own hands.”

The original queen of Street is back, sharpened by her disasters, and she’s ready to clear another city block for women on wheels.

“For the girls contemplating picking up a skateboard, there is a community for you and a support system,” she said. “I feel like a lot of girls, whether they want to do skateboard, BMX or motocross, there’s a huge level of intimidation by males.

“I might compete for another couple of years, but I want to start this now. I have that spark again.”

This story was originally published June 13, 2015 at 7:20 PM with the headline "Former Modesto skater Torres sobers up, returns to X Games podium."