CHELES, France – For skateboarding, a sport where rule # 1 is no rules, the Olympic Games straitjacket, with its thick thicket of tradition and regulation, may not be a natural or immediate fit.
So at the Tokyo Games, freewheeling skaters and Olympic officials will learn a lot from each other. Could be quite a drive. Both have a lot to gain by creating a sensation with their brand new partnership. Along with karate, surfing and sport climbing, skating is one of the first four Olympic sports.
The spectacle of skaters turning their boards into flying machines and soaring over obstacles will add a rejuvenating splash of youthful energy to the rundown sports spectacle. The youngest, Japanese Kokona Hiraki and British Sky Brown, are only 12 years old.
With its street fashion and “all-are-welcome” culture of all genders, ages and abilities having fun together on four wheels, skaters expect the sport to help attract future generations of Olympic fans and spectators who the International Olympic Committee needs to continue earning mega-bucks from the Games.
FREEDOM OR GLORY
For skaters, the strong Olympic spotlight means global visibility and thus possibly better prospects of being able to make a living from riding and sponsoring. Skaters also hope the Olympic seal of approval will generate more money for skate parks and bowls to train, land, and invent their tricks.
Some skaters fear that the Olympic codification will come at the cost of the freedom, spontaneity, and soul of their street-born sport. They argue that skating is a whole lifestyle and fear that co-optation will crush and compromise it. Similar concerns existed with snowboarding – before it became one of the most inflammatory and popular shows at the Winter Olympics, and three gold medals made Shaun White a household name.
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With adrenaline-pumping acrobatics similar to that on Olympic snow – so much so that White toyed with the idea of qualifying for Tokyo in skating as well – skateboarding promises to excite and inspire both the existing and the untapped Olympic audience.
“The people who watch us in Tokyo will say to themselves, ‘This is nice,’” predicts Madeleine Larcheron, a 15-year-old who will be playing for France.
“I am often asked, ‘What’s the scariest trick?’ There is no. Everything is scary in skating, ”she said. “You go upside down, you rush there, there is always a bit of danger.”
THE COMPETITION
For its Olympic debut, Skateboarding has a purpose-built park on the shores of Tokyo Bay to play with.
The 40 men and 40 women will go hunting for medals in two events – in the park, where they skate in a bowl, and on the street, where they climb stairs, rails, curbs and other street furniture.
The street competitions will take place the first week on July 25th and 26th. The park events round off the second week on August 4th and 5th.
Because skateboarding is so fluid and inventive, with hundreds of tricks, variations, and options to choose from, judging is less fixed and more subjective than other sports. The judges will question the difficulty and execution of tricks and runs, how skaters use and navigate obstacles, trying to reward originality and variety.
As happened to White with his gold medals in the halfpipe at the Turin (2006), Vancouver (2010) and Pyeongchang (2018) Winter Games, the Tokyo Olympics could be a first step towards world fame for a skateboarder.
With fearless stunts and elaborate messages that age doesn’t matter, Brown is already a very visible 12-year-old with a rich portfolio of sponsors and a number of social media accounts. The British phenomenon is back from a terrible fall last year – a video of which, of course, was posted on an Instagram account managed by her parents. She will compete in the park event.
At the other end of the unusually broad age spectrum at the first Olympic skateboarding competition is Dallas Oberholtzer. The 46-year-old comes from South Africa, where he works to introduce young South Africans to the sport.
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