Skateboarding is not an Olympic Sport.
Skateboarding is art.
It is a way of life.
A dialect, a language, a verbal expression (or not).
It’s an expression of styles, textures, colors, rhythms, and movement that build up character in self-esteem individuals.
It is about character and personality.
And there’s a common characteristic in that tribe that touches all riders.
A place that is ours, where no one needs to speak.
A state of mind.
To make it political ruins its essence.
To prove my point of view, I will explain my path in this journey and my perception of the sport through the years I’ve been connected with it.
Demo at Afonso III school
It is known that skateboarding history goes back to the 60s, when a North American group of surfers had the idea to build up a wooden board attached to some wheels to compensate for the lack of waves.
There is a lot of material on the internet that tells this and other stories related to skateboarding, but this is not the focus of our essay.
For those, like me, who had the privilege to initiate this sport in the previous years of the new millennium, we lived moments of pure joy: the birth of our idols, the beginning of brands, the industry kick, and the whole evolution of the sport through constant innovations.
My first contact was a demonstration at the Afonso III school in Faro. My older brother took me with him. This was in the late 80s.
At that demo, Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, and other riders made the crowd go wild with their passion and persistence.
The experience of seeing them live on a skateboard, flying through the air, using those old school ramps from the Bollycao brand, lighted a sparkle in me that I never thought possible. Only the ones fired by the same desire know what I’m talking about.
Some days later, a neighbor of mine, Quim, had a Variflex skateboard and I remember being on it for the first time. I was a kid, somewhere around 10 years old, and I got addicted to it. Skateboarding had some power in me. Weeks later I convinced my parents to buy me one at Rebocho’s surf shop “Surf Faro – Surf Shop”.
Black and White VHS
Interstellar magnitude came to Europe from the EUA inside Trasher or Transworld Skateboarding Magazines, along with some VHS videotapes with skateboarding movies passed from brother to brother, with all the latest news from the sport.
Rodney Mullen, Daweon Song, Kris Markovich, Chad Muska, Stevie Williams, Jamie Thomas, Danny Way, Colin Mackay, Rob Dyrdek, Jeremy Wray, and other skaters were part of our bedroom decoration as inspirational sources.
Initially, skateboarding was divided into half-pipe and street styles. My passion was always the second one. The first style has variations of maneuvers on the coping or air mode, rolling side-by-side and pulling out tricks on each side. Street style is different. It implies creativity and ideas to choose which line to ride, which maneuver in every spot, and how to choose real-life obstacles to impact our way of skateboarding: sidewalks, stairs, gaps, etc. That was my world.
Now and then somebody would bring a VHS videotape with a “new” skateboarding movie, and we would stop anything we were doing to choose the nearest VHS player where we could watch it, over and over, until motivation and hype grabbed us to a brand-new session.
I know by heart a lot of underground skateboarding video parts, section by section, where spots, skaters, and maneuvers had a unique ranking for style, speed, difficulty, and momentum.
The VHS videotapes were so used that there was no color, they were now in black and white. Today, the same videos that we used to watch have the original colors with a reasonable quality. The Internet is amazing. Some of my favorite sections:
Kris Markovich (Foundation’s Art Bars)
Plan B – Second Hand Smoke (1995)
Rodney Mullen VS Daewon Song (1997 Full VHS)
Since the 1980’s and 90’s a lot has changed in the skateboarding industry.
Skateboarding is (not) a crime
Riding a skateboard was forbidden.
We used to run away from the police – literally.
Sometimes we were caught with no big consequences.
It was part of the adrenaline.
There were no skate parks.
There was no reserved spot for this sport, only abroad.
We used to ride from spot to spot looking for stability: at Mr. Custodio’s terrace in Faro, the old Faro’s Market square, Coobital, Bom João, Carmo’s Church, 5 de Outubro street, Quinta da Bélgica, São Brás de Alportel and, later on, at Penha’s high-school.
We used to build our ramps with wood that we could find at construction sites. When we were lucky, we would travel to Pedrouços Skatepark in Lisbon or Seville’s Skatepark.
There was a TV show called Portugal Radical every Saturday morning. Through that TV show, we had the opportunity to know the National Radical Skate Club, every major skater in Portugal, to see what was happening around the country, changing mentalities, and seeing how every municipality would deal with the sport.
The riders of my time, with whom I had the pleasure of riding with, were: Chinês, Cegonha, Guelas, Nuno Afonso, Diogo Osório, Ricardo Fonseca, and, above all, Rómulo. I even had the chance to appear in a couple of those TV shows.
Our mission was to tell the world that Skateboarding was not a crime. Although some mindsets thought otherwise, due to the noise and signs we left everywhere we used to ride.
We were happy. Very much.
There were no DC Shoes
There were no mobile phones.
There was no internet.
Today we can find DC Shoes in any market. They are made in China and sold everywhere. In my time they were handmade and came directly from the EUA.
We saw pictures inside the magazines with tricks we used to imitate, brands we didn’t know, clothes, and shoes, and we normally risk our own money and make an intercontinental purchase with a registered letter at the post office shop.
The shoes took months to get to Portugal, and they were part of an unforgettable ritual.
I remember ordering my first Colin Mackay black and white shoes and waiting an eternity. They arrived on a Friday and I only opened the box the following Sunday, next to my “skateboarding brothers”, in a Seville session that I will never forget.
Long before the movie, we were KIDS
My skateboarding brothers were: Diogo, Chico, Andrew, Rodas, Bubuia and Valter. It was Andrew who gave me the “Pupu” nickname. On the same day that I successfully jumped the Carmo’s Church stairs, I stepped on some dog feces. You’ve got poo poo on your shoe… Therefore, “Pupu” remained since then.
Our days included: Coobital, Papa Burger, the high school main street, Tomás Cabreira, the hallway of Baskin Robbins ice-creams, robberies to the vending machines, and a lot of “moranguinhos” shots at Nicola coffee shop. These were rebel days of pure joy.
Every trick, every overcome, every victory helped build our character and personality, our way of personal and professional lives. I’m so grateful for this sport.
Time passed, the world evolved, and many things happened.
During that period, skateboarding meant that you needed more skateboards and more skate shoes. The performance is normally directly connected to these two items.
Paulo Raimundo Jesus helped me for a long time, by supporting us with Razo Skate Shop.
He always had our back. You’re Big.
Skate is magic that happens and stays in those who feel it.
It’s the perfect unified place.
Transversal art. It’s life. It’s memory. It’s friendship.
Not an Olympic sport.
From 00 to 20
With the new millennium, everything changed.
During the decades of 2000 and 2010, skateboarding grew unimaginably.
Brands build up a multimillion-dollar industry with professionalized skaters and worldwide tribes. It became global.
That was when we realized that skateboarding was more than a hobby or a sport. It was art in its whole.
Hours, days, and years that we passed blinded by that piece of magic were now understood by the old school that skateboarding was always a form of expression, self-control, and a personal learning process. Overcoming moments that grew from the pillars of our behavior that were being built up along the way.
And this magnitude is so big that it affects every single thing in our lives.
No pain, no gain.
If, for me, a Kris Markovich 360 flip could make me dream with my eyes closed for a whole night, thinking about the whole movement, the beginning of the pop, the flip kick, the clothes format, the hairstyle, the softness of the trick, the landing, the freedom of the skater like him, today, there is not much to say about skaters like Nyja or Gustavo Ribeiro.
There are no words to explain the technical evolution of skateboarding.
Today, you can see 5-year-old boys making three 900º in a row on a massive half pipe. You can see 5-year-old girls making professionally insane runs. Incredible.
Skate is now indescribable.
Fashionable and Political
But skateboarding is also fashionable.
I see youngsters with a skateboard under their arms in perfectly clean soil. Skateboards are now props like a wallet or a purse. Style with no action. And that is not skateboarding.
Just like the Olympic Games are not skateboarding as well. There are a lot of scary and difficult events to win, much more than this worldwide political event called the Olympic Games: the Dew Tour, X Games, Street League, World Skate Series, Tampa, Berrics, Copenhagen… Those are the true iconic contests of the sector.
Skateboarding is now a political matter. That is why it became an Olympic sport.
I’m not saying that the other sports have the same type of analysis. I’m only talking about skateboarding.
A few days ago I read some Portuguese politician talking about the lack of psychological strength of Gustavo Ribeiro, the worldwide known Portuguese skateboarder, at the Olympic Games this year. Gustavo didn’t win, and this political man criticized him. As if Gustavo’s performance didn’t have the proven theory of Malcom Gladwell 10 thousand hours principle. He was not prepared because he is a skateboarder and not a high-competition athlete. There’s a difference.
I’m sure that the biggest merit is not on the Olympic Games, due to the worldwide pressure that all social classes impose, but in the world contests mentioned above, one that Gustavo already won and elevated with our national flag in his arms (and I do not recall this same politician speaking about that anywhere).
My own state of mind
From the early years until now, some people have looked at skateboarding history in an evident way. A search for the past and for this unfolded path that we used to ride for.
For the true lovers of the skateboarding world, the Nine Club podcast demonstrates how important/ relevant/ present this search is.
From time to time, I listen to my youth idols’ voices telling the stories that changed so many lives forever. They speak about how it developed and what was behind these worldwide scenes. Whether in the Nine Club podcast, on a web search or on social media, skateboarding is very present with millions and millions of followers.
I don’t ride a skateboard (for now), but I feel like a skateboarder from head to toe.
My tattoos, my scars, and the body pains tell me that I will remain a skateboarder forever.
And B16 lives this skateboarding influence.
This alternative and urban art world made us grow.
Rodney Mullen’s Ted Talk says it very well.
And there is so much more.
I’ve been thinking about buying a new skateboard.
My son is growing, and I want him to understand this magic. It’s difficult being a father because I know that he will surely be injured, but that’s part of the magic. I know that a good moment in skateboarding overcomes hundreds of bad ones.
I want to ride my skateboard with him on my back on a clean floor, in that silence that the bearings sing.
Skateboarding is not an Olympic sport
A lot of people think that because skateboarding is now an Olympic sport, it is now at a higher level. That’s a mistake.
Skateboarding is much more than a “simple” Olympic sport that has the purpose of choosing the best athlete from the five continents. It’s not only the run performance, it’s the attitude, the style, the personality, and the character of the rider. There are no juries to evaluate that type of feature with non-systematic or closed rules. Skateboarding is not from or inside the system. It’s all but that. It is a disruption, revolution, and anti-systematic form of expression. It’s not speed, repetition or perfection.
The world elevated skateboarding to an Olympic sport but in my opinion, it is not. I share Tristan’s thoughts on this
Skateboarding is an art form, and true art doesn’t have a first, second, or third place. How much is a Banksy? Or a Robbo? Why is the first one more expensive than the second? Which one is the best? Which one is the more detailed or technically painted? Who is right?
Olympic Games modalities do not have the same quality as any sport from an isolated perspective.
Could Rodney Mullen, the godfather of skateboarding, win the Olympic Games? In which category? Skateboarding is in a constant innovation. Still today people are inventing new tricks, new styles, and new ways of riding their skateboards. Is this the Olympics?
Running, cycling, football, swimming, surfing, breakdancing, etc., every single one has its industry, importance, and sector ranking itself.
The older sports have a history in the Olympic Games, due to worldwide History, in a particular moment of the world. That happened to me, in that period when there were no mobile phones, internet, or DC Shoes.
Skateboarding is not an Olympic sport.
