Skateboarding in the Olympics

rather than the olympics jedi blieves that skateboarding would more benifit from a worl pro tour like asp pro surf tour or motogp world race tour or formula one. for street,vert,megaramp,racing. 4 different skate world champions winning the title at the end of the year. mayb throw bowl in aswell

vert and mega makes sense.. street doesnt. Olympic sports have one thing in common, failure and bails are rare. Street skating is a game of failure over and over again. Theres no way Olympics would tolerate a sport where every second trick someone steps off the board or slams. That would be like bumping the height of the equestrian jumps to the point 1 in 2 horses eat shit every time they try to jump it. But yeh i couldn't care less if vert and mega were added to olympics. Id still rather watch that than synchronized swimming.

anything that puts across the notion that skateboarding is a sport isnt a good thing..

it could be just as likely that the i.o.c is trying to attract/secure younger generations interest. that shit will never happen

makes me cry seeing these amazing concrete bowls, courses bwing built for a week or two then bulldozed.. I can't imagine how sydneysiders feel

Sports sports sports sports.

I get sucked into the Olympics and watch allot of it when it comes around and coming from the perspective of a person that likes watching the Olympics I say no. Because I don't agree that sports that have judges should be in the Olympics. All Olympic sports should be fastest, highest, strongest etc. There's plenty of sports that have judges but I think the Olympics at it's purest should be events that can't be decided on someone's opinion.

Coming from a skateboarders point of view I still say no. X-games and street league is all the main stream, prime time TV comps I need. Anything more and skateboarding looks like a circus.

So my meaningless opinion is no.

Jim's basically nailed it right there...

Being from a family that's originally from an equestrian background, I know a lot of people within that industry feel the same about dressage being in the Olympics, that discipline of the sport leaves you open to having to rely on the judges opinion rather than the individual skill of the horse/rider in that event, where as showjumping & Cross Country Jumping push the elements of the horse/rider to not only complete the course with less mistakes as possible & the fastest.

Skateboarding doesn't need to be in the Olympics, the Olympics need it.

I think Skateboarding in the Olympics would be fucking sick, I don’t know why but a lot of people seem threatened that a wider audience and the extra mainstream attention drawn to skateboarding would somehow take something away from it, which is completely untrue.

Despite how much appreciation we have for the aesthetics of Neen Williams’ heelflip, or watching Figgy pull a crook through a triple kink handrail, there’s something about skating that most people just don’t “get”.
But at the same time, because the Olympics is global, its broadcast to a lot of countries who would have never even heard of skateboarding… so we want to reach all those other people who “get it”, but have never seen it.. because then they might pick up a board.

Sure the whole ‘no drugs in sport’ thing is gonna rule out a lot of competitors, but for every cokehead / daily mushroom eater, there’s a straight-edge dude to even out the average.

Look at the other contests like Street League and the X-Games, only a certain type of “robot” skater can actually complete in these things, and although completion is now really what skateboarding is about, it’s still fucking cool to see amazing tricks going down on live TV.
And who wouldn’t want to see Shane O’Neill win gold for Australia?

I can understand why people are afraid of corporations jumping on the bandwagon, but that’s not gonna change anytime soon anyway, and if you’re really trying to fight the power, speak with your wallet. All these assholes crying sell-out then going around wearing Nikes can go fuck themselves.


I don’t call skateboarding a sport, but really it can be whatever you want it to be.
To some people it’s a field for competitive athleticism, to others it’s a creative outlet for self-expression.
It could be a hobby, a career, an art, a sport, or just a way to get around.
You can take is seriously, or fuck around – as long as you’re having fun, who gives a fuck?

To me it’s about self-progression, driven by individuals on their own terms.
As an Olympic sport this would not change at all, if anything it will only bring skateboarding to more countries, which is awesome.

We all know pushing your board down the street is not about looking cool to pedestrians; it’s about being able to laugh at yourself when you completely eat shit trying to ollie up a gutter.

*competition is not really what skateboarding is about...

The other thing to consider is there’s also a big difference between watching a skate video, and actually being there to see a trick go down.
A demo brings that feeling to to your local skatepark, whereas a huge contest also gives pros some real motivation to give it everything they’ve got.

At the end of the day I just want to see gnarly tricks, and I’m gonna be pushing my board regardless of what everyone else is doing.

We also need more Chinese dudes breaking away from kung-fu, gymnastics and parkour, to find their real calling on a piece of wood with wheels.

I'm with you peter you dirty fiddler. I'd be stoked to be able to flick between some pole vaulting, over to some fabrizio santos on the street course and then back to some pommel horse

You completely just changed my opinion peter file. Well said, good outlook.

Skateboarding is a sport not an artform and it is and always has been extremely competitive and competitions have always been a massive part of skateboarding since its inception . This whole skating is not competitive nor a sport is bullshit . There are levels of creativity to all sports it does not make them an art form . No one has a valid argument against skateboarding being in the olympics besides the bullshit call "it is not what skateboarding is about" no one can ever say what it is about though

TLF it's definitely a sport to some people, but I’m saying that it isn’t the same thing for everyone.
Even though a game of S.K.A.T.E. is extremely competitive, it’s quite different to the Street League Final, or kids rolling around trying to find new spots.
Learning to kickflip is just as core as Jake Brown’s Mega Ramp 720.

I argue it as an Art-Form because everyone’s approach is completely different, and favourite skating to see is stuff I wouldn’t have even thought of doing.


A fresh board is like a blank canvas, you can do whatever the fuck you want and there might not even be anyone there to stop you, or to see it go down.

Louie Barletta has a trick in Tweak the Beef @ 14:50, I don’t even know you would call it..
On this red steel girder, he does a noseslide into a straight boardslide above the wheels…
I don’t know if these 4 seconds stoked anyone else as much as me, but you can’t call that a sport.

peter_file - Good post, however again in my selfish opinion I think skateboarding has enough mainstream attention. I grew up playing allot of sports and my parents and brother between them have been to every Olympics since 1992 in some sort of coaching or managing roll. I love sport and grew up around it but I took up skating because it wasn't a sport. Sure, if skateboarding was in the Olympics it would reach all parts of the globe that has never seen it before but if you think those countries are going to start skateboarding like you and me do you're wrong. Countries like China will open high performance skateboarding institutes and start handing out scholarships to kids with gold medal potential. There will be these Chinese skateboard wizards that you've never seen a video part or photo of before skating and probably winning medals. Kids will start skateboarding to become Olympians that was the last thing on my mind when I started.
There's already the huge corporate interest in skateboarding with X-games and street league and skateboarding is still managing to hold onto it's soul.....just. The Olympics would totally change that.

look guys. skating would benifit more from a world championship tour. as u already know jedi has personaly been involved in the olympics- not as an athlete but as a protester- when i started the olympic torch relay obstruction worldwide trend in 2000. and there r problems with skating in the olympics. drug problems- many but not all pro skaters do xctasy or coke (or weed like jedi) and this would cause conflict if skating was in the olympics. and also the olympics is corrupt ie. marion jones won 3gold 2bronze in sydney 2000 then in 2007 she admited that she was a drug cheat. this type of thing would look bad for skating. like lance armstrong and tour de france fiasco. marion jones was the most succesfull athlete at sydney 2000 but seven yrs later shes admits shes a drug cheat. olympics r corrupt. does sk8boarding want to b a part of that?

You could represent Australia in the special Olympics endor.

repeat marion jones was the most prolific medal winner at sydney 2000 and then in 2007 she admited to taking performance inhancing drugs. repeat the olympics r corrupt. does sk8boarding realy want to b a part of that?

no krim il represent australia in the olympic torch relay

I don't know why I'm doing this but here goes.....

endor - are you saying the Olympics are corrupt because there has been drug cheats?
So according to your logic if there has ever been a drug cheat in any sport the whole organisation of that sport and everyone involved with it is corrupt?

what like essendon football club krim? everyone knows that the olympics have drug cheats. so dont lie krim- u know that the olympics r corrupt

So because of Essendon everyone involved with AFL is corrupt? and because of Marion Jones everyone involved in the Olympics is corrupt?

That's not very fair to just throw a blanket assumption across people like that. That's like me assuming that all mentally retarded people smoke bongs just because you do.

Please don't acknowledge him..

You're right. I'm sorry. That's the last time.

all mentaly retarted people smoke bongs just bcause i do? y dont u fuck off krim u hater rat. im trying to talk serious and u spin ur hater rat shit. admit it krim- jedi kicks ur ass at skating and ur a jealous hater rat