Skateboarding and the Olympics Postscript: Hard to share this...
Skateboarding and the Olympics Postscript: Hard to share this without smiling
During the Olympics there was a lot of attention on skateboarding and a whole host of commentary on the various merits and demerits of its inclusion. I think we all got a bit fatigued with some of the rhetoric… Yet still, every now and then a story pops up and I flag it for interest. In all truth some of the best stories are really simple hopeful ones (I see you Mr Beachy).
This last week Manny Santiago’s Nine Club interview shed a little light on the inside life of the Olympic village for skateboarders. He reveals how most nations sat an ate meals with each other, but skateboarders tended to always eat together irrespective of their national affiliation.
Manny is deliberately hesitant to call skateboarding a sport during this discussion. Just let that sink in for a moment. An Olympian deliberately cautious about calling their activity a sport. Yet he goes on to identify the tight cultural bond of skateboarding. We can frame this as good sporting camaraderie, but it really doesn’t take much reflection to identify that this ‘sportsmanship’ came before skateboarding was a sport.
There is a bigger discussion here about patriotism and team spirit. The Olympics is about nations competing, albeit in a safe a supposedly fun way. But how often is that sidelined for glory and gold? Some might say skateboarders should have more team spirit (read national patriotism) but in truth it seems they have already chosen their team.
Another quote I have been holding on came via Iain Borden who spotted it in a Guardian article about responses to the Olympics this last year. There are a whole bunch of reflections but the one from Alan Vickers really resonates. The fact that skateboarding can provide hope is a little intoxicating. I mean, I already know this, but the fact that it translates to others who haven’t ridden a skateboard just seems powerful. The real beauty in this is that skateboarding was largely included in the Olympics due to the ageing demographics of viewers. It was a cash grab for young viewers and their advertising incentives. Alan at 76 hardly is the target audience for the new sport and that is what makes his comment all the more significant. Any guess where Alan would be sitting in the canteen?
