How have the Olympics changed British skateboarders?
With less than 100 days to go before the Paris Olympics, the Great Britain skateboarders are again gearing up, like the gifted medal winner Sky Brown did three years ago. But whatever the result may be, the skateboarders' faces in the UK are already different.
A drizzle is falling on a Wednesday afternoon outside the Southbank Skatepark, London, a spot known as the birthplace of British skateboarding.
Skateboarders in Southbank Skatepark. Video: Kai Kong
Skateboarders in Southbank Skatepark. Video: Kai Kong
Boarders, both young and old, are manoeuvring, with their wheels rolling, rattling and slapping the concrete. Some are taking videos of their friends attempting tricks with laughter and cheers. A boy is teaching a girl to bend her knees while going down a ramp.
Dan Gator, 31, a musician who has been skateboarding for 12 years. Photograph: Kai Kong
Dan Gator, 31, a musician who has been skateboarding for 12 years. Photograph: Kai Kong
Among them are Dan Gator, 31, a bassist of a local metal band. He has been skateboarding for 12 years. While listening to the music, he enjoys gliding up and down the bank, with his long curly hair fluttering in the air. "It's something that you cannot really transcribe. It's really just empty your mind," he said, "it's not drugs, trust me. It's just good to feel."
Dan Gator surfing on the ramp. Video: Kai Kong
Dan Gator surfing on the ramp. Video: Kai Kong
Nearly
750,000
people participate in some form of skateboarding in the UK, according to the national governing body Skateboard GB.
After the activity debuted at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the national enthusiasm rose, and it even reached its peak when Sky Brown, 13, who won the bronze medal in the women's park skateboarding event, became the youngest medal winner in British history.
But the 31-year-old musician has mixed feelings about the activity being turned into a sport in the Olympics. At first, he said the skateboarding performance was very subjective and hard to quantify.
"It just feels weird because you cannot really make a score out of this," he said, "it's something that you feel right to do for yourself." He added: "It's like saying a painting, it looks good, for some people."
Six years before skateboarding was included in the Olympic games, thousands of boarders had signed a petition to urge the International Olympic Committee to stay away from the activity.
Clarkie Clark, who started the petition, said skateboarding was not a "sport", but an "individual creative activity" to let boarders enjoy informal competitions among their friends to have fun.
Although the petitioners eventually failed, their idea was widely shared by typical skateboarders, including Gator. The national governing body, Skateboard GB, also said on its website: "Most skateboarders would define skating as a lifestyle rather than a sport."
Despite his early concern, Gator has opened his mind bit by bit after the Tokyo Olympics as he noticed the changes in the negative stereotype of skateboarders.
"People have changed their perspective towards the sport," he said, "whether it was we are a bunch of scumbags that smoke weed and cause graffiti everywhere and damage to infrastructures or whatever, it became something like, Oh, yeah. It's not really that bad to look at it right now."
According to a survey conducted by Samsung, a tech giant partnering with Skateboard GB to support the sport's development, the number of female skateboarders in the UK rose by 20% in the year after the Tokyo Olympics, and over half of millennial recipients said they wished they could embody the skateboarder philosophy.
Sky Brown with her Bronze medal in the Tokyo Olympics. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP
Sky Brown with her Bronze medal in the Tokyo Olympics. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP
"When they see me, this little girl doing this crazy trick that probably boys aren't even doing, they'll be like, maybe I can do that too," the young professional skateboarder Sky Brown once told BBC years before she joined the Olympic games in Japan.
Andy Macdonald competing at the X-Games in Los Angeles in 2004. Photograph:AP/Ric Francis
Andy Macdonald competing at the X-Games in Los Angeles in 2004. Photograph:AP/Ric Francis
The Paris Olympics may see another breakthrough as 50-year-old skateboarding veteran Andy Macdonald made one last bid to join the game. The British American is a legend known to all within the sport, having won the most X Games medals in skateboarding. A professional since 1994, he is a founding member of the US governing body in skateboarding.
Back at the undercroft of the Southbank Centre, Gator said it's hard to keep skating when getting older. When he was 20, he probably skated for hours without getting tried. Now, he needs to go home after a two-hour surfing.
Still, he sees more opportunities for young people to make a professional life in the sport because of the Olympics. "It's probably the greatest time, if you're really good,' he said, "you actually can get on the spotlight very quickly."
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