Rob Schumacher/USA TODAY Sports/imago
“The world is at our feet because we stand on it”: Arisa Trew is on a roll (Paris, 6.8.2024)
There are two disciplines in Olympic skateboarding. After the skate street competitions at the beginning of last week, in which tricks and stunts are performed on stairs, railings and ledges, the skate park competitions followed this Tuesday and Wednesday. They are held in a facility that looks like an empty swimming pool, with small and large jumps, steep and flat ramps and curved walls of different heights. The best skaters perform stunts with high jumps and safe landings. They have one minute to perform a demanding, fluid and error-free performance, using the different elements of the park. The difficulty of the tricks, precision, execution, speed, creativity and style are all judged.
The key is to master the wobbly board in the undulating park and on the high walls. Top scores require complex jumps, such as the “540,” in which the skater performs a one-and-a-half turn around his or her own axis (540 degrees). Professionals ride forwards and backwards, combining board spins in the air and high jumps with half, full or multiple turns. Top scores are given for backflips and frontflips, i.e. backward or forward somersaults with the board.
In the women’s final on Tuesday, teenagers dominated the field. Australian Arisa Trew impressed with a difficult and at the same time extremely stylish run. The 14-year-old won with 93.18 points. She had already won four gold medals at the “X-Games”, the world’s largest championship for so-called extreme sports. Second place went to 15-year-old Japanese Kokona Hiraki, who achieved 92.63 points. Bronze went to 16-year-old Sky Brown from Great Britain (92.32 points). The youngest finalist was 13-year-old Heili Sirvio from Finland, who came fifth. 17-year-old Lilly Stoephasius from Berlin came in 14th. Unlike other sports, there is no age limit for participation in the Olympics in skateboarding.
The men’s event was also won by an Australian, 21-year-old Keegan Palmer with a top score of 93.11 points. He had already won the gold medal at his Olympic debut in Tokyo 2021. Silver went to 24-year-old Tom Schaar from the USA (92.23), followed by 23-year-old Augusto Akio from Brazil (91.85). The age range for the men was much larger: 51-year-old Andy Macdonald, however, missed out on a place in the final.
The inclusion of skateboarding in the Olympic Games program was a milestone in the establishment of the sport. The decision of the International Olympic Committee in 2016 aimed to appeal to younger viewers with new, dynamic disciplines. The development of skateboarding is closely linked to surfing. In the 1940s, Californian surfers first mounted roller skates under boards to experience the feeling of surfing on land on days without waves. From the 1960s onwards, the first boards were produced commercially. The introduction of soft urethane wheels in the 1970s revolutionized skateboarding. These new wheels offered better grip and a smoother ride. The first skate parks were created and skating developed into its own subculture. US bands such as The Ramones, Black Flag, The Offspring and NOFX shaped their sound, and later hip hop. The magazine, founded in 1981, Thrasher is the mouthpiece of the scene. Since the 80s, the skate pioneer Tony Hawk from California has been inspiring teenagers. Movies, video games and music clips made the trend sport increasingly popular – at the latest when Avril Lavigne got more girls and young women excited about skate culture with her hit “Sk8er Boi” in 2002, it had finally arrived in the pop culture mainstream.
The sport had become a worldwide phenomenon early on, and there were soon skate parks, shops and events in the Federal Republic of Germany too. In the GDR, access to western consumer goods was limited, but the first boards found their way into the country through visits from the West. As with most western subcultures, the state and party leadership were initially skeptical about skateboarding. However, the recreational sport was popular and generally apolitical. The growing popularity led to a combine in Wernigerode producing its own board, the “Germina Speeder” – which was presented to the GDR DIY magazine Practically In 1987, however, it was very thin, poorly shaped and unsuitable for leisure use due to the lack of an anti-slip coating.
Today’s skateboards are highly sophisticated specialty products; the board itself, the non-slip surface (»grip«), the complex axles, steering rubbers, ball bearings and wheels are precisely manufactured and interchangeable in order to adapt the sports equipment to the respective needs and riding style.
