What is Skateboarding? All you need to know about the sport at Paris Olympics 2024
While the Paris Olympics 2024 has several exciting events for athletes to showcase their skills in, an event that is sure to draw onlookers is skateboarding. Skateboarding is one of the most popular and mesmerizing forms of recreational activity around the world, but since the Tokyo Olympics 2020, it has also been an Olympic event.
In its heart, skateboarding is simple – a person uses a skateboard, which is essentially a flat board usually made of wood, to perform tricks while riding on it.
Skateboarding at Paris Olympics 2024: Rules and disciplines
In its Olympics debut in Tokyo 2020, skateboarding featured two disciplines – street and park.
In the park event, skateboarders must ride through a route filled with several bowls and bends. The skateboarders are judged and ranked according to their use of the bowls and bends to perform jumps mid-air, as well as the height and speed of the tricks they perform during the jump. The riders perform three 45-second runs, and the best of them will be counted as their final score.
In the street event, skateboarders travel through a course that resembles a skating park – filled with stairs, handrails, and other obstacles – all while performing jumps and tricks. The riders perform two 45-second runs and are supposed to perform five tricks, based on which they are judged.
Skateboarding in the Paris Olympics 2024
Skateboarding competitions in the Paris Olympics 2024 will take place at the Place de La Concorde from July 27 to August 7 and will feature four medal events (men’s and women’s street and park). A total of 88 athletes from 23 nations will take part in the events of Paris Olympics 2024.
Who has won Skateboarding medals in the Summer Olympics?
Since its inception in the 50s United States, skateboarding has enjoyed immense appeal among the youth around the world. Given the popularity, the Olympics Associated added the event to the roster of Tokyo Olympics 2020, where 80 athletes, some as young as 13, participated in the park and street events.
Japan were the runaway winner, emerging victorious in three out of the four events, as well as winning five of the 12 medals on offer. One of the highlights was in the women’s street event, where the gold medalist (Momiji Nishiya) and silver medalist (Rayssa Leal), at 13 years of age, became two of the youngest medalists in Olympic history.
The rest of the medalists were:
- Men’s street: Yuto Horigome (Japan; gold), Kelvin Hoefler (Brazil; silver), Jagger Eaton (USA; bronze)
- Women’s street: Momiji Nishiya (Japan; gold), Rayssa Leal (Brazil; silver), Funa Nakayama (Japan; bronze)
- Men’s park: Keegan Palmer (Australia; gold), Pedro Barros (Brazil; silver), Cory Juneau (USA, bronze)
- Women’s park: Sakura Yosozumi (Japan; gold), Kokona Hiraki (Japan; silver), Sky Brown (USA, bronze)