Skateboarding was recently voted in by the IOC to be a part of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Everywhere, skateboarders on social media seem to be up in arms at the decision. So should you be stoked or bummed about the news? Well… we’re not sure.
Skateboarding has, and always will be, about personal expression. It’s never been about conforming to a certain rule set, playbook, or meeting someone else’s criteria, and that’s why skateboarding is great. Some think the addition to the Olympics will take away from the personal expression; by bringing it to the world’s arena, there’ll be homogenization and it’ll ruin the personal freedom that everyone currently experiences with skateboarding. My question is… how? There’s so many different avenues of possibility when it comes to skateboarding. From Rodney Mullen style flat ground “dancing” tricks, bowl shredding, flat ground technical flip tricks, mega ramp, speedboarding, tech sliding, longboarding, etc. The list goes on. So why not add “Olympic Skateboarding” to that list? If you’re a dedicated street skater, then you probably don’t mess with bowls or dancing or any of that other stuff. So why not just avoid the Olympic aspect of skateboarding too? Just keep being you, skateboard how you want, keep it personal, because what the rest of the world is doing with skateboarding doesn’t affect what you do on your skateboard, and that’s why we all love skateboarding!
On the other hand, we’re not blind, we know the IOC understands that there’s money in skateboarding, and they want a part of it. So maybe we don’t want the likes of the Olympics profiting off of us. Other big companies will join in and take advantage too, pushing out smaller core companies in favor of big brands like Nike for example, a company that’s killing off the small skater-owned, skater-run skate shoe businesses. Sure, it’s growing the “sport” of skateboarding, bringing interest to those who may not have been interested before, but at what cost? I think it might not be worth it; support the small, passionate, enthusiast owned companies and turn away from big corporations that just want to take your money.
The Olympics offer up a chance at super-stardom though, everyone knows the name Shaun White or Michael Phelps, even in households that have no interest in snowboarding or swimming. That sort of exposure brings in big money, and the athletes receive a large portion too; Shaun White drives around a Lambo for hell’s sake. There are kids out there that dream of becoming the best skateboarder ever, and getting rich off of it. Sure Tony Hawk did it, but the inclusion of skateboarding in the Olympics might mean that the list of superstar skateboarders is more inclusive and more attainable. Tony Hawk has done so much for skateboarding, what if we had 5 more Tony Hawks running around, super rich, and still entirely dedicated to the growth of skateboarding? That sort of growth is good growth in my book. It brings legitimacy and respect in the eyes of the general public too. If you’re all about doing hoodrat shit with your friends, tagging your favorite spots, and smoking drugs, (Salty Peaks doesn’t condone any of that by the way), then you can choose to keep doing that, maintaining your own thuglife image you’ve worked so hard for in the process. But for those who desire a clean public image AND they want to skateboard, well those two things might not be mutually exclusive anymore.
Let’s get to the actual event though; having skateboarding events in the Olympics might be pretty sick. Sure, maybe dudes are going to run around in matching leotards competing against other countries, but maybe it ends up being more like snowboarding in the winter olympics, a pretty rad thing all around. Sure, snowboarding has its kooky moments in the Olympics, but for the most part, we enjoy it. So hopefully, skateboarding will follow that trend.
So maybe, just maybe, including skateboarding in the Olympics isn’t so bad after all… what do you think?
