I've been practicing speedrunning sly on my original scratched-up disc, and often I have to restart the console to skip a cutscene freeze - not exactly 'ideal' for speedrunning, and I was wondering if there was a store or seller that sells sly1 with guaranteed no issues. I know e-bay often sells games as "Good as new" even with a couple little scratches and nicks, and that's usually fine for a casual player, but I need something a little more refined.

If worse comes to worse, I can just jailbreak or emulate, but I would prefer to do it the old fashioned way.

any ideas?

You might be able to find a retro game store that could resurface your scratched disc for just a few dollars.

Typically most people buy their newer copies of Sly 1 from ebay or a retro game store or similar. Little scratches and scuffs should not affect gameplay unless there is significant scratches on the disc. In regards to the cutscene freezes, the ruleset allows for you to pre-make a file that skips those cinematics for the run, see guide here

Jailbreaking your console isnt allowed unless it is for region-unlocking your PS2, and emulating the game would require a disc (to play off of, or to create an iso) anyways.

thx guys