I don’t like the Olympics any more than you do, but it's time for us to face the facts: skateboarding is going to be in the Olympics whether we like it or not, and probably a lot sooner than we thought. As of last week, Tony Hawk told Larry King that he has been talking with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and it looks like skateboarding may sneak it’s way in to the 2020 Summer Games.
As you may or may not know, for a sport to be incorporated in to the Olympics the IOC requires it to have a governing body. Enter the International Skateboard Federation, founded by Gary Ream (President of Woodward skateboard camps) in 2004. The ISF has 77 Member Countries and was established to “provide direction and governance for the sport of skateboarding, worldwide.” Before this, skateboarding was represented by a bunch of fruit-booters.
“The Olympics need skateboarding more than skateboarding needs them,” Hawk has said multiple times and it couldn't be more true. With the success of slopestyle snowboarding and freestyle skiing in the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, the Summer Games need to follow suit in order to garner the attention of a younger audience. What this means is the Olympics can have skateboarding, but the IOC is going to have to come to terms with the ISF’s goals, which include, but are not limited to, the following:
- "To make skateboarding available to everyone in the world who wishes to participate;
- To guarantee skateboarding continues to provide freedom of self-expression and creativity;
- To promote and support the sport of skateboarding in order to guarantee it’s future;
- To continue to maintain the integrity and authenticity of skateboarding as a sport, a passion, and a lifestyle;
- And to apply these rules of governance in a fair in equitable way, and to do so through the leadership and expertise of the skateboarding family, worldwide.”
The ISF isn’t trying to ruin skateboarding by putting it in the Olympics; they’re trying to preserve it. Skateboarding will be in the Olympics with or without them and personally, I’d rather have the ISF at the helm.
But still, skateboarders around the world have been cursing the incorporation of the activity in to the Olympics because, “Skateboarding isn’t a sport.” I agree. Skateboarding is a lifestyle with an alternative way to view the world, but it has a lot of qualities similar to other sports like, contests, sponsorships, sport specific apparel and shoes, teams, media corporations, and more.
So in a sense, skateboarding is a sport, just not in the traditional definition of the term. When someone is talking about sports we automatically associate the term with games like hockey or basketball. That’s semiotics and that’s just the way our brains work. These sports have structure: rules, player positions, plays, time limits, minimum and maximum team requirements. The list goes on. I think skaters get really bent out of shape when skateboarding gets called a sport because it ends up getting lumped in to the same category as hockey and basketball. But to many skateboarders, skateboarding is a way of life. Surprisingly, Rob Dyrdek said it the best out of anyone calling skateboarding a "lifestyle sport" and classifying skaters as "half rockstar, half athlete."
Skateboarding lacks structure and that’s what makes it what it is. Freedom and creativity reign supreme in the skateboarding world. Anyone can pick up a board and start doing tricks flat ground. But even Ream said it so well himself: "Skateboarding has gone from a street activity to, really, world class athletics. You match that then with the participation you have world wide and you gather the attention of the international sports scene, and that is the Olympics."
Dually noted, the Olympics rigidity and structure is the complete anti-thesis of skateboarding. But then again, so is every other competition that’s ever existed. Street League is fucked, and if you think the Olympics is the tipping point, then you’re living in the past.
I say bring on the Olympics. Skateboarding’s history is in the streets and that’s what’s important. What’s the difference between the Olympics, Street League, and X-Games? It’s just another competition and I think it could bring a lot of good to skateboarding. Everybody focuses on the negative side to Olympic skateboarding without considering the positives.
Think of all the undiscovered talent that will be uncovered in light of the Olympics. Not to mention the government subsidies provided by the IOC to create skateboarding facilities across the world, growing and supporting the skateboarding industry.
Will Nyjah add a gold medal to his trophy collection in 2020?
Despite the fact that athletes do not get paid to participate in the Olympic games, their home country Olympic committee does pay out medal bonuses. For the United States an athlete gets $25k for gold (sorry, Nyjah), $15k for silver, and $10k for bronze. Canadian athletes receive $17.9k for Gold. There’s nothing wrong with making money doing what you love.
What’s more, it gives skateboarders a chance to represent their country and the opportunity to win a gold medal, the most coveted award in any sport.
Of course, this is all speculation. Maybe skateboarding won’t make the cut for the 2020 summer games, but the point I’m trying to make is that skateboarding is evolving and it’s going to be in the Olympics whether we like it or not, and rather than focusing on how it’s going to 'destroy' our culture, we should do our best to look at the positives of Olympic coverage and help deconstruct the myth that the Olympics is inherently bad for skateboarding.
