Does skateboarding belong in the Olympics?
Maybe it is just because I am older and was actually a teenager when skateboarding was growing in popularity. Maybe it is because I didn't really participate in this craze and instead played regular sports like basketball, football(of the american variety) and soccer. Maybe it's just because I don't really understand how skateboarding can actually be judged. There's a lot of different factors but for the most part I think we were better off when these sports were exclusively part of the X-games and not part of the tradition that is the Olympics.
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I suppose it might be an attempt on the part of the Olympic committees to keep the "brand" a bit more modern and appealing to the youth of today but to me this kind of seems like a rather extreme break from tradition. In my opinion it all kind of began when snowboarding was introduced to the winter Olympics and this kind of opened the door for skateboarding in the summer Olympics. I think that if you can compete in an event with Air Pods in your ears, that this sport doesn't really belong here.
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I'll admit that I didn't watch the skateboarding final but this isn't necessarily because I don't like skateboarding, it is because it was on in the middle of the damn night where I live. Apparently Japan won the first gold medal ever for the event and I don't think anyone is trying to claim that it is rigged or anything. However, a lot of the judging to me seems to be very subjective and in that regard I think there is always going to be some sort of bias or even politics involved in the judging.
I guess I'm just an old soul when it comes to the Olympics and I suppose skateboarding is in fact, considerably more exciting than the 93 rounds of archery that they have where China cleans up on the medals. I dunno, skateboarding just seems out of place because in my mind it is a bit too modern and doesn't seem very Olympics-like.
To be honest I don't even know if the X-games is even a thing anymore. It was really popular back in the 90's and early 2000's but maybe it collapsed. I don't have any idea because I wasn't really a fan since these activities were things that little kids did in the park until they were 20 or so and then they moved on to other things.
In that regard I suppose that skateboarding has a lot in common with many gymnastics sports. The people that win these events tend to do so at a very young age and very few people still compete past the age of 24 or so. So maybe I am wrong.
For me, this sport doesn't belong in the Games but I suppose it is here for good now and I guess this bodes well for manufacturers of skateboard equipment and also for hospitals tending to kids with broken limbs. Even skateboarding legend Tony Hawk is on the fence about it being in the Olympics when he said "The Olympics needs our cool factor more than we need their validation." While Tony stands to gain financially from the sport being in the Games you can kind of tell that he maybe would be ok with it not being an event as well.
What do you think? Should skateboarding be a part of the Olympic Games?
I don't really see it as an Olympic event and should be part of the x games. They are losing the Olympic values in my opinion and are desperate to keep a wilting audience. The Olympics is not what it used to be and is a shame they are cocking it up.
At the end of the day the Olympics, like all sporting events that don't involve little kids are all about money. I suppose this is their attempt at remaining youthful and relevant.
Yep, fuck kayaking
Why not? as far as I know the Olympics should cover any sports in existence with enough athletes and fans am I right?
I don't know what are the rules or requirements to include a particular sport in the Olympics but I guess skateboarding fans would love to see it included. I had my own skateboard when I was a kid but what I enjoyed the most was playing the Tony Hawk games on the PlayStation hahahaha. I haven't keep informed about this sports in the past few years but I guess it must have new stars and new fans.
Those games were pretty epic back on the Playstation. I spent a lot of hours on the first one and don't think I even played any of the followups.
I don't know if skateboarding fans really care that it is in the Olympics but I suppose any attention that the pros can get is a good thing. I don't know how much money the top guys get but outside of a few people it probably isn't very much. I guess it serves its purpose but to me at least it seems like we have strayed pretty far from what the Olympics was about.
How dare you talk about something else than MMA 😁
I won't go check, but does ice skating is in the winter Olympics? So, Skateboard is like ice skate on wheels?
At the same time, I did skateboard, I did rollerblade, and we were mainly smoking weed. So unless they can smoke weed, I would say it doesn't make sense to have it in the olympics.
I think that when snowboarding was becoming part of the Olympics that a lot of those people were weeded but at the same time we kicked someone off the USA team this year for testing positive for weed also. I can't imagine the logic behind thinking that marijuana is a PED. It enhances my desire to sit on my sofa and order a pizza.
I know in Brazilian Ju Jitsu it gets you all "flowy". Meaning you find escape positions and shit you won't find normaly.
I don't think Nate Diaz is smoking the right thing though... 😄
Should have included the SkateHive tag, you would have had some good additional curation!
That being said, I think your argument against skateboard is basically saying that the Olympics, should just accept it's becoming irrelevant, and fade away. Now I know that's not literally what you are suggesting, but that is what happens if things don't adapt. However the original Olympics had 2 naked greased up dudes wrestle each other in the sand, and I'm sure someone had the same argument when they replaced that. That's because clearly the Olympics doesn't have set sports set in stone, because it's about athleticism!
I do agree about the judging being a major point of contention, but name a sport where judging based on style hasn't lead to controversy at one time or another. The key is a balance between finding judges that care for the sport, finding ways to keep money out of the decision making, and at least trying to make it as fair as possible. But clearly the comparison to things like figure skating, show a large similarity in finding the balance between trick difficulty, and landing successfully, which is much harder when your not attached to the board like figure skaters to their skates.
Personally I think downhill skateboarding would be much better suited for the olympics than trick skateboarding, as it's much closer to existing Olympic sports like downhill skiing. No need for judges, just a high speed camera for the finish line! The skill it takes to use nothing but gravity, momentum, aerodynamics, while trying to take the better race line, and trying not to crash into each other, appeals to a much broader audience than something where very few people can even name any of the tricks. Plus can you imagine how awesome the Olympic leather race suits, and full face helmets would look!!!
Another point i'd like to bring up, is the stress that so many kids are put through, mostly to satisfy parents of said kids. At least with skateboarding it's something that average day kids choose to do themselves, rather than being pressured into a sport that they would otherwise have no interest in.
So maybe if the Olympics are to remain traditional, they should scale back in size along with the waning interest in these older sports. They already cause a huge disturbance with the facilities they build, destructive land use, the displacement of the homeless in the area, and later with the buildings mostly becoming abandoned after.
So in conclusion of my way too long comment. I think change is inevitable, but the problem is that I think this was a choice made more based on profitability in the relevancy of skateboarding, not the athleticism of it. That being said, I honestly cannot find an argument against skating that wouldn't easily apply the same to figure skating under the right light, so as long as the judging is done ok, then it is what it is. So you watch figure skating, I watch skating, and we just accept that we're not all going to like every other sport.
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Love love love the long response and you have a lot of good points especially this one.
Absolutely, and the only reason why I hadn't thought of that myself is because figure skating isn't something that just everyone does as a kid so, good on ya for making that connection because you are absolutely right.
The Olympics fading in popularity is probably inevitable but it sure is exciting for a lot of people. I remember reading that I think it was NBC had paid billions for exclusive North American broadcasting rights and at least for now, are probably regretting that decision.