Olympic Skateboarding?????

2021: the year that skateboarding finally premiered in the Olympics, one year after its scheduled debut was delayed due to the pandemic. The medals have been handed out and Japan rose to the challenge, bringing gold in both men’s and women’s street series. Now that the afterglow is fading, what do you think of seeing skateboarding represented on the world’s stage? Was it the end of the activity (not a sport!) that we all love or is it the start of something bigger and more awesome for skaters around the world?

I guess it all depends on your relationship with the Olympics and what they represent. When the modern day Olympic games began in the late 1800s, all participants were amateurs. This gave rise to unknown heroes such as Jim Thorpe, the native American who wowed the sporting world in the early 1900s in multiple sports. It wasn’t until the 90s (at least what I remember) that professional athletes began to compete, most infamously with the Dream Team basketball squad of 1992. I was 14 at the time and one of the biggest Michael Jordan fans you’ll ever find in a tiny town in East Texas and even I thought it was terribly unfair that he and the other NBA stars of the day were allowed to dominate the entire games. To me, the magic of the Olympics was seeing new world records created by those who I naively thought weren’t on any payroll. It was Greg Louganis sweeping the diving sections in both ‘84 and ‘88. Or Svetlana Boginskaya, the Belarusian Swan, who medaled in 4 events in Seoul in 1988 and became 11 year old Nate’s first TV crush (well, I guess second after Wonder Woman).

There have been advocates for skateboarding in the Olympics for decades, welcoming the attention, acceptance and money for things like skateparks. But as many as are for it, there are just as many voices against it, fearing that it will water it down, that posers will pour in and ruin what we love. It doesn’t help that there was an article written over at Slate which has gone viral, in which the author found skateboarding’s Olympic debut to be underwhelming. Would they have been more wowed if it was presented more like a skate video from Spike Jonze such as Yeah Right or Pretty Sweet? Where the skating is shot and edited like an action thriller, full of pyrotechnics and skate wizardry? Or if the course had obstacles such as the Lyon 25 stair set that Aaron Jaws Homoki ollied like it was no big deal (well after blowing out both knees the first time he tried it)? Could it be that this was the wrong era for skating to premiere in this stage?

Which decade do you think would have been the best to have debuted skateboarding in the Olympics? In the 1970s, the course would most likely have been composed of slaloms and snake runs, with a flat area for freestyle. The 80s would have been all about half pipes, bowls and pools, with big airs and inverts being the dominant tricks and personalities such as Tony Hawk and Christian Hosoi leading the American team and the Abrook brothers repping the UK. Big changes would have come with a debut in the 90s, as boards changed from shaped to popsicles, wheels shrunk, pants expanded, and tricks became super technical - I’d imagine Daewon Song would have dominated these games! However, what was the perception of skaters after the movie “Kids” premiered in ‘95? When Y2K panic cleared, the first decade of the new century would have seen a new popularity thanks to the X-Games, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Jackass. Each decade sees a spike in skateboarding’s prevalence and the early OOs could easily lay claim to the most popular era in quite a while. While there weren’t skate-centric movies such as Thrashin’ or Gleaming the Cube, skateboarding was everywhere, from TV shows, commercials, cereal boxes, video games, etc. Skaters were even actors in films such as the Kevin Smith View Askewniverse. For some reason, not much during the 2010s sticks out, skate-wise, but I’m sure there were many awesome things going on within the culture and it’s influence. The 20s feel like a huge skate revival, in terms of influence across ages, races, genders, countries, etc. As well as a renewed interest in old school setups, tricks and skate terrain. More people than ever are skating and finding acceptance within the community. It’s amazing to see kids taking gold in their respective categories, while Steve Caballero is still out there skating bowls and pipes, making it look easy for a geezer!

So, maybe now is the perfect era for skateboarding to make its Olympic debut. What’s the worst that could happen? A child who never thought about skating is inspired and asks their parents for a board? That parent remembers the fun they had skating and gets a board for their child and themselves? And now family time includes trips to the skatepark? Or cities across the world build skateparks to provide places for all to skate safely? Who knows, that newly built skatepark could be the training ground for the next gold medal skater!

*Cool historical fact: the 2nd and 3rd known public skateparks opened in Japan in the early 70s - in Taito and Tokyo respectively.