With views to Paris, skateboarding experienced another party with young people as its flag

On December 7, 2020, Olympism sealed on its official Twitter account a new philosophy that would flourish in Tokyo and will mature in the editions to come: Games “more focused on youth generations”. The family consisting of skateboarding, 3x3 basketball, sport climbing and surfing, which made a revulsive Olympic appearance -for adults- at the Japanese Games and already confirmed for Los Angeles, will add breaking in 2024.

This growing search for sports “by young people for young people” finds a strong figure in skateboarding: the average age of the medalists in the last Games was 15 years. One of them was the Brazilian Rayssa Leal, who with 13 had climbed to the second step of the podium in Tokyo and who on February 5, having turned 15 recently, won the Street event, the first of the two specialties played in the World Championship in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, which distributed vital points in the classification for Paris 2024.

Leal, who five days before the consecration had been hospitalized due to a wrist injury and who had to compete in the qualifying stage with a cast, won over Chloe Covell (Australia) and Nishiya Momiji (Japan).

If at the women’s level the surprise was based on the same number of finalists from Brazil as from Japan, at the men’s level it was awakened by the premature elimination of the Japanese Olympic champion Yuto Horigome who, due to the absence of the American star Nyjah Huston, paved the way for the Frenchman Aurélien Giraud, who will reach the Olympic Games in his homeland as world champion. The Portuguese Gustavo Ribeiro finished second and the 12-year-old Japanese Onodera Ginwoo finished third.

The Park competition was held during the second week and the youth also marked their pulse: half of the finalists barely reached the minimum age to participate in the Youth Olympic Games, 14, the years in which the British, with Japanese roots, Sky Brown was crowned for the first time. She did so ahead of Japan’s Kokona Hiraki and current Olympic champion Sakura Yosozumi. On the men’s side, Jagger Eaton drowned out the Brazilian celebration in a hard-fought final. The 21-year-old American relegated Pedro Barros and Augusto Akio to second and third place, respectively.

Both Street and Park respected the Paris 2024 competition format, with qualifying instances and a final consisting of eight skaters. The same qualifying criteria was used, based on two attempts per participant and the execution of five tricks, from which the judges consider only the score of the best attempt and add it up with the two best tricks, which yield a definitive score.

The final position in the World Championship significantly influenced the World Olympic Skateboarding Ranking (OWSR), comprising five levels of tournaments, among which this competition ranks highest. The ranking will close on June 24, 2024, just over a month before the Games. Already in Paris, on July 27 and 28, the Street disciplines will be held and the Park disciplines on August 6 and 7.

The survival of skateboarding in the Olympic program, like that of other urban, informal and adolescent sports, has reasons for being. Not only is it growing in popularity and proposing simple rules for all ages, but it mainly gathers a mass audience on streaming signals, a fundamental axis considering that television rights represent a central income for the IOC.