“With videos like these around, skateboarding will never become an Olympic sport. You can thank us for that later.” Andrew Reynolds, talking about the Baker 3 video.
I couldn’t agree more. Why would any skater want skateboarding to become part of the Olympics? Respect? Money? Fame? Who cares?
What we have in skateboarding is something unique in the world of sports, so much so that most outsiders don’t recognize what we do as a sport. Is it a hobby? Is it art? Play? They don’t see it as a sport because it doesn’t conform to the sports they know, like football, basketball, and NASCAR.
If you want to see what would happen to skateboarding if it became an Olympic sport, take a look at some of the other sports that are there, like ice skating, gymnastics, and diving. Don’t look at snowboarding because it hasn’t been in the Olympics long enough to make a judgement.
Do you think gymnists go through all the work they do for the Olympics because it’s fun? Sure, some of the little kids are having fun, but they’re not the ones making it to the Olympics. Have you ever seen video of these five year old girls jogging laps, doing push ups, and basically working out for hours every day, hoping to make it to the Olypics when they’re 12? It doesn’t look like fun to me, it looks like child abuse.
If skateboarding becomes an Olympic sport it just might get skaters more respect, money, and fame. But there are consequences. You also get trainers, agents, uniforms, and rules. Then you get high schools having skateboarding as a PE option. Eventually, skateboarding will become just like every other sport, and the risk is that it might not be as fun.
Then again, my predictions could all be wrong. Have the X-games ruined skateboarding? I don’t think they’ve caused much change, yet. People are skating pools more than ever, Thrasher magazine is still in business, cops still don’t like skaters, and skateboarders in general are still rebels as much as they ever were. I am a little worried about the younger generation, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
In the meantime, hopefully Baker will keep things moving in the right direction.
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It’s the ’sport’ aspect of skating (and surfing, snowboarding etc) that I really dislike most of all. I mean, scoring skaters in any competition for prize money is exactly the same as all those other sports, such as gymnastics etc. Somehow skating – through attitude – has kept its nose, uh, dirty… but I don’t think it’s too long before it’ll be gentrified like surfing has become. I hope I’m eating these words, though!
I have read comments on why we need to have skating in the Olympics. They are all about how skateboarding needs this chance to keep skating from dying again. Well if having skating on the Olympics is what is keeping some people in skating then they didnt start for the right reasons anyways. They need to find the true meaning of skating, which is skating for the fun of skating, not for the marketing aspect. And we can thank Bam Margera for the posers out there. Thanx Bam!! NOT!
The next death of skateboarding will be a blessing to real skateboarders. Please sign our petition to keep skateboarding from falling into the hands of the industry corporations who will be the only ones to benefit monetarily from the Olympics.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/656763888?ltl=1146760863
More stories: http://realskate.com/USAS.htm
Clarkie
Clarkie, you are a Kook. Individuality means being yourself. I know that you just Stepped on a Skateboard and Realized that barking sparkin’ grinds in the shallows and ollying off the roof into the deep tranny was “fun”. I know that Inhaling Ciggarrette Smoke just came natural to you and is something you were too cool to ever practice. So you can probably understand how Scary it is for me to STEP to you “CORE SKATER” types with your web forums to dis BAM from.
I BLED. I CRIED. I ACHED. I FOUGHT. I BLED MORE. I ENDURED RIDICULE. I FOUGHT MORE. I BLED AGAIN. I am broke and crippled. It took alot of dedication to achieve a level where I can’t shake it. Skateboarding was an escape for me, but that’s my raw deal. I still had to work hard at it. It’s about achievment. Why do you want to keep people down? I WISH I had a better attitude about life-in-general in my formative years.
Anybody can call themselves a Skater. Skateboarding is an act, an art, a drive, a passion, and a Sport. I direct an Explicative Into Your Space. Someone else has obviously made up you mind for you. Your Identity is threatened. Did you find an old Thrasher? Attitude sells too. Call me what you will. I’m on the side of Evolution. YOU don’t have to chase olympic gold, but I’m sure that when the first skater who grabs it does so sponsored by Marlboro, with Ripped jeans and a Two-Tone Two Hundred Dollar “Did it Myself with a Pocket Knife-Look” haircut, it won’t be as painful for you.
Then again, you may be the type of “CORE SKATER” to drop out and find yourself a NEW way to be angsty.
Don’t you hate it when old people wave, parents support, and cops don’t shoot? You’re comin’ off like another kind of conformist to me. At least I can gather by the date of your last entry that you’re out there “Havin’ Fun”.
SEE YA AT THE PARK
skateboarding is not a sport, first of all, no matter how many dance routines you try to cover it with, it will never be a part of the Olympics. Andrew Reynolds is right anyway, i’m going to thank him before hand (Big Thanks Capt. Reynolds). skateboarding is more unique than any other sport out there and it not even a sport. And Don’t tell Baker or any other Skate team what to do with their God given talent. it’s people like you (greedy and corrupted) who try deface skateboarding by shoving cell phone, wal-mart, and McDonalds advertisements. you don’t even skate. so as far as any of us are concerned you don’t have a voice for skateboarding so don’t speak.
@emerican
Who are you addressing your comments to?
to those who don’t even skate and are trying to speak for us; and to those who are for skateboarding in the olympics.
yeah i think skateboarding should be in the olypics it is a sport how about them dancers little chinease gymnastic peaple try to skateboard you will see the peices of #$@ not be able to so screw all of you who think skateboarding is not a sport just probably cause your fat@$$ is sittin on ur couch eatin doritos
Skateboarding should be an Olympic event. Becoming part of mainstream culture helps skateboarding as a whole. Those people who want to keep skateboarding DIY/underground/in-the-streets/punk/etc are not truly being as individualistic as they would like you to believe. Think about it- If jocks started skating, and brought with them their uniforms, attitude, attention to form and detail, training regimens, and overall mainstream-ality, would it REALLY affect you, your enjoyment of riding, or the way you skate? If it would, the problem is within yourself. There are many aspects of skateboarding: art, competition, fitness, image, lifestyle, self-identity, subculture, fashion, business, hanging out, and just having fun. Your commitment to and enjoyment of any of these aspects rests solely on your own decisions, not what others are doing.
Here’s what I see the olympics could bring skating: Increased support for public concrete parks, better technology in terms of performance and safety, and increased natural athletic talent participating in and pushing the progression of my favorite sport. There will always be an underground, artful, just-for-the-fun-of-it, movement in any sport just as there is currently in skateboarding. Just look at 3-on-3 street basketball, stickball, street hockey, and other neighborhood versions of mainstream sports. They still maintained their DIY, low-exposure status and people still enjoy them.
I think that it really needs to be pointed out why Andrew Reynolds and companies like Baker might resist skateboarding achieving its highest potential as a sport. They make their money more so on their image than the technology and talent they bring to the sport. Now I’m not saying that Baker sells crap or that they have a crappy team. They have tremendous talent and their products are excellent. But they don’t SELL their products based on their talent and quality. Just look at their ads in the magazines. The majority of skateboard companies choose to sell themselves based on their attitude and style, even though their teams and products may be excellent. They know that Olympians and people striving to be Olympians demand excellent products and won’t buy image and style, which will force these companies to change the way they do business. I just hope that individuals and companies in the industry would not place their talent for selling image above supporting the actual progression of the sport.
Tony Hawk said:
“There are plenty of successful skaters that have made their careers almost exclusively by competing. These are the ones that will rise to the occasion when offered a chance to be Olympic athletes. The irony is that the naysayers whose livelihoods are based in the skateboard industry will end up benefiting from the newfound global interest.”
Fine. Public apollogy to Clarkie. I discovered who SHE is AFTER my attack. Before I even knew that Clarkie was a “she” I posted a comment on this site imagining her to be a virile male “me” @ 24. Got that ATTITUDE? Sorry, Clarkie. I may be a Pot, I may be a Kettle, I still have egg on my face at age 35. I commented with a Grizzly Bear mouth and got my Hummingbird @$$ in trouble (AGAIN). I “ran my fingers off” before I did my research. Upon discovering my folly I went to Pedro for a video release (S.C. Veterans) to look for you or someone you know and explain that I DID my research and I was sorry, and then somebody ripped my stick (a Tom Knox reissue that I purchased, Strangely enough, in the City of Santa Cruz for a session at Derby). Then I really couldn’t find you. I couldn’t find my board. A terrible mess. Sorry.
At any rate….. We live and learn and somehow still manage to love. Skateboarding rules. Skateboarding kills. A gun is a gun until someone picks it up. It is only then that the gun takes definition if it only be an extension of the hand that holds it. A skateboard is not a gun. UNIVERSE controls skateboarding (and toes and feet). The gun is a Prop for the Beastie Boys, a Tool for the Lawman, a Weapon for the Taker and a non-issue for me. I could be killed with fists, feet, a pipe or a broken bottle. I might even get a massage, a lever-extension for my wrench, and some kudos for taking out the trash given those same items. Things are what they are. What I’m trying to say is that skateboarding is an ART FORM & the capable love skateboarding no matter what direction UNIVERSE takes it or what it or it’s sibblings grow up to be. Some kid like me saves his soul tearing up the backyard swimmin’ hole while the parents are watching the Olympics, BECAUSE the parents are watching the Olympics, and this is pleasing to the me and to the Universe. One kid is picked on and ridiculed and finds redemption in chasing or attaining achievement or GOLD MEDALS in skateboarding while another one throws another Columbine. Tragic.
I hope you get everything you want, Clarkie. When it comes to “Who controls skateboarding” I’m good enough only knowing that it’s not me. I am thoroughly Keruuupt and will eat a ROLLERBLADE to prove it. You may never let me sweep the skateboarding industry’s sawdust. I’ve seen it though.
If you HAD to be someone else, who would it be? That “ever-so-pure” barefoot guy on the bus (Mark Gonzales writes about him in “Broken Poems”), or Tony Hawk?
You MUST choose…
I am Keruuupt! I will trade ROLLERBLADE money for Hot Dogs and eat them with chilli and cheese and smile my crooked smile.
I still feel so stupid about my first and reactionary comment! Thank you jrickner. We’re of the same opinion and yours is so well put. Are you a girl or something?
Vert should go in the olympics
street should stay way out the way
i agree with Will street should stay away but vert would be kinda cool.
umm, i think if skating was a pe option, id like it. And the fact that its going to be an olympic sport really shouldn’t affect anyone at all, if you dont like it, then dont watch it, it happens every 8 years, only the fake skateboarders will participate, the only real ones will stay on the skate teams and stuff, but if the teams go int the olympics, then those companies will probably be forced to shut down, cause i know i wouldn’t buy nything from them anymore, and neither will nyone else. Sims skate/surfboards and World industries used to be huge, now i see them at like walmarts and stuff, cause they were trying to appeal to the wrong group. At that same time, the group that steve rocco and Rodney mullen created, appealed to the kids who liked to fuck with people. Now like Rodney Mullen has the biggest/bestest company, Almost skate co, whoooo go uberlight