Not always welcome in what was once a hyper-masculine sport, women skateboarders, particularly from Australia, are scooping up medals, breaking world records and becoming Olympic 'roll' models.
Create a free account to read this article
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Just over 10 years ago, professional skater and later Tokyo and Paris Olympian Nyah Huston told influential Thrasher Magazine, "Some girls can skate, but I personally believe that skateboarding is not for girls at all. Not one bit." Huston later apologised.
But in Paris, it will be Australia's women skateboarders shining brightest. Skaters like Queenslander Arisa Trew who at just 14 is competing in the park division and fellow 14 year old Chloe Covell from Tweed Heads in the street division are knocking that stereotype out of the park.
Another young skate prodigy, 15 year old Ruby Trew, (no relation), from Sydney is also competing in Paris in the park division. With impressive records and growing international profiles, Queensland's Haylie Powell and NSW's Liv Lovelace are also competitors in the street division.
Arisa Trew and Covell have won numerous gold medals in some of the world's most elite competitions and broken world records.
At 13, Trew was the first woman to land the 720 trick. That is two full 360 spins She did it at a competition in front of Tony Hawk, the skateboarding legend who invented the trick in 1985.
Trew then became the first woman to land the 900 trick, which Hawk had battled to achieve as a youth. She was also the first to land it in a competition. Hawk declared,
Glass ceilings are so 2023
Covell is also pushing girls' and women's skateboarding into world-record territory. In 2023, she was the youngest woman in street skateboarding to win two medals at the X Games in Chiba, Japan. This year in California, she was the youngest gold medallist in the X Games history. She has also set world records in the 2024 Olympic qualifiers.
If she wins gold in Paris, she will become Australia's youngest gold medallist. This follows the record by swimmer Sandra Morgan, who won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay at the 1956 Games in Melbourne.
This change to enable young women to have such freedom and space within skating and the Olympic team has not happened overnight. The journey of skateboarding from a youth culture to an Olympic sport is shaped by a complex process of power and politics.
And there is still some way to go towards skateboarding being a beacon of equity, diversity and inclusion. After ten years of community work in the areas of diversity and consent education and as co-author of the study Skateboarding, Power and Change (with Anthony Pappalardo), I have observed how the acceptance of women and non-traditional skaters does not always mirror what we see at the Olympics.
Barriers to participation can still hold strong at local skateparks for instance, where a traditionally dominant hyper-masculine culture can manifest in sexism to violence which still needs to be challenged.
However, steps are being taken to tackle these potentially taboo issues at a community level, such as with the campaign Consent is Rad, and at the national sport organisational level, such as Skate Australia's (SA) engagement with Sport
Future is bright
Women like Shari Duffey and Aimee Massie are also taking up roles as judges for World Skate SB. SA has appointed Kat Williams to support athletes' well-being. All these campaigns and roles are crucial to increasing the participation of all individuals who wish to skate, whether at the recreational level or elite high-performance realm.
Diversity in skateboarding, including showcasing and supporting girls and women, is not just a social justice issue but is proving to be a genuine asset to the Olympics.
While the Tokyo Games struggled for viewership, skateboarding was one of the few sports to boost it.
The Paris Olympic Games have taken it as a given that skateboarding is popular with audiences, both in person and on air. The competition is bestowed with the prime location at the Place de la Concorde, located in the heart of Paris close to the iconic Avenue des Champs-Elysees. Street events are held 27-28 July and park events 6-7 August.
The future for the five Australian women competing is bright even beyond medals and podium results.
With wide-reaching media attention like Covell's feature in Vogue, emerging sponsorships and future Olympic journeys, including in LA 2028 and Brisbane 2032, the limitations of the past [are] cast aside by a group of athletes free to perform at their best, to be the best.
Dr Indigo Willing is a visiting fellow at the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info.
