You MIGHT have noticed that skateboarding is absent in this year's 2012 Olympics... No Tony Hawk skating for USA, or Bob Burnquist for Brazil, or Rob Dyrdek for his own island nation somewhere... There were rumors of skateboarding being included! Big ones! Ones I might have had a hand in spreading!
What do you think about it? We've had people saying this and that, but I wanted to put together a fresh poll and post it here. Also, I wanted to open this blog post up for opinions! Everybody loves opinions! Post yours below!
Now, even while the Olympics rage and people who couldn't care less about diving and pole vaulting and competitive fruit ninja are all engrossed in their country's honor, the rumors about 2016 have started... Will skateboarding show up THEN?! Will there ever be super professional looking skaters with manicures and jump suits, waving to the crowd, and then dropping in as the world watches? SHOULD that ever happen?
Comments
I see a lot of pride as Olympians represent there countries so why not have skateboarders proudly represent theirs? What makes skateboarding so great is that you can do your own thing and not worry about what others think. Some skateboarders will want to compete and represent their country while others will do it for other reasons such as the simple pure joy of doing it. Basically to each his own. I think it’s important that the counter-cultural side of skateboarding that decries the Olympics as a sell-out to corporate greed be tolerant and respectful of skaters that want to compete in the Olympics otherwise they are no better than bullies who pressure others to conform to their flavor of skating or sub-culture. Skateboarding will never lose it’s roots regardless of how mainstream it goes so why not be tolerant of another group of skaters that want to compete ? Our community is known for our tolerance right?
I’m from the UK i’m involved in the skate scene and I think it would be great to see skateboarding in the Olympics. It’s time that the counter culture side of skateboarding grew up a bit and realised that it’s wrong for them to peer pressure young skaters against treating skateboarding as a sport. Let’s face it they have already lost the argument; the X-Games and and the Dew Tour and the Street League have already taken skateboarding mainstream. If people want to compete they should be allowed to. If they don’t want to that’s fine too. Skateboarding is supposed to be a tolerant culture. As for selling out … in reality if a person wants to make a living doing what they love and the “skate brands” aren’t forthcoming with money but the “non-skate brands” are then why should they give up the chance to what they love full time. I think again it’s a very unrealistic argument that these people put forward. The truth is the older skate brands just don’t want other newer businesses competing for a slice of the pie. Again they have kind of already lost the argument; so many kids over here are wearing nike and addidas skate shoes and Vans is as mainstream as it gets these days, 90% of people wearing them have never stepped on a skateboard. As for these brands not supporting skating … well we recently had a local skate comp for the kiddies and asked a number of skate brands and one non skate brand for some prizes. The only brand to throw in was the non-skate brand, so if the “skate brands” aren’t gonna support their own grass roots then maybe it’s time for a changing of the guard anyway for the sport to flourish into the future.
Skateboarding is way more impressive than all the summer olympic stuff, like what would you rather see : some one jump over a pole or go down a mega-ramp?? i think that one is pretty selff explanitory, and also haha any skater with those skin tight clothes would be really uncomfortable and look really weird…
Aaron says right about skateboarders doing their own thing and that’s why I don’t think it would work as an Olympic sport. Skateboarders are creative with their skating and to have a standardised street skate park with rules and regulations would kill it. I suppose you could have the vert ramp skating but even then the intense competition of the Olympic arena could take away the very thing that makes skateboarding so unique – its freedom and the sheer joy of skating regardless of whether you win a medal or not.
Skateboarding has gotten so much bigger in recent years, the fact that people all over the world are starting to get more and more into it, not that they haven’t been for a while but you see so many more people skating now a days rather than 20 years ago. It has spread all over the to where it seems like every area of the world has their own steez, which i think is pretty dope. I really hope that they consider it to be in the summer Olympics in 2016, it is an ever growing sport that more and more people are picking up, USA would be fucking stacked though!
so would the Aussies plus they are out of their fucking minds when it comes to just off the wall ridiculous shit! Skate Love