Vareeraya Sukasem, 12, of Thailand in the warm-up before the heats of the women’s street skateboarding competition at La Concorde in Paris. Photo / James Hill, The New York Times
From the shooting range to the swimming pool, teens and preteens are grabbing medals and the spotlight. Nowhere is this truer than at the skateboard park.
It was a hot Sunday morning, and the women’s street skateboarding venue at the Place de la Concorde was swarming with teens.
One girl had a long black ponytail with the ends dip-dyed blonde. Her black sneakers had white stripes on the left foot, orange stripes on the right foot and bright yellow rubber soles.
Another wore a green polo shirt with funky green camo pants, her long braids flowing behind her like streamers.
And the smaller girl in the oversized T-shirt and baggy cargo pants had topped her ensemble with a vivid purple helmet.
These cool kids were not fans. They were the competitors: Japan’s Liz Akama, 15; South Africa’s Boipelo Awuah, 18; and China’s Cui Chenxi, 14.
There were 22 skaters in all, and more than half of them were teenagers, including two 15-year-olds from Spain; 14-year-olds from Australia, Japan and France, and a 16-year-old from the United States. A Thai skater, Vareeraya Sukasem, was 12.
Zheng Haohao, an 11-year-old from China, was about to have her Olympic debut in women’s park skateboarding (which differs from street skateboarding). She’s the youngest Olympian since 10-year-old Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras participated in the 1896 Games in Athens.
A wave of very young athletes has swept over this Olympic Games, and the reactions to seeing children in such a high-pressure environment range from awe to concern.
By now, we should be used to teenage girls in the spotlight, from pop music to sports, especially at the Olympics. Nadia Comaneci won a gold medal in gymnastics at the age of 14; Kerri Strug was 14 at the Games in Barcelona; Tara Lipinski was 15 when she took home a gold medal for figure skating; Simone Biles was 19 at her first Olympics.
In Paris, nowhere is youth more dramatically on display than at the skateboard venue.
Unlike in gymnastics or figure skating, there is no performative femininity in skateboarding. No ribbons, sparkles or glitter. The skaters compete in T-shirts and shorts or cargo pants. Often they wear very little jewellery, other than the regular-girl accessory of a ponytail holder on the wrist. The focus is solely on the skills and tricks the skaters have worked hard to perfect.
Skateboarding is a sport birthed in the streets, with a rebellious spirit awash in swagger. It manages to be simultaneously very dangerous and also chill. The street skaters kick flip their boards, grind down concrete barriers and slide down stair rails, only to land with their feet on the board, rolling away smoothly.
The kids looked like, well, kids. If regular kids competed at the Olympics.
The crowd gasped, clapped and roared as the young athletes dropped into a course highlighted in pink and turquoise paint, sailing over steps, jumping up onto obstacles, crouching and leaping and landing complicated tricks. It was surreal to see these tiny people soar through the air as if their skulls and kneecaps were not at stake.
The cheering was so loud that spectators hundreds of feet away at the neighbouring BMX arena kept trying to lean over and see what was happening. DJ-selected house music and dance remixes blared from the speakers, and many of the spectators were children themselves.
When 16-year-old Rayssa Leal of Brazil skated, Brazilians in the stands went absolutely delirious. They screamed, they shouted, they jumped up and down, they waved flags. Some were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with her face. They chanted: RAYSSA! RAYSSA! RAYSSA! She stood on her board with her eyes closed and her arms spread wide, basking in adulation.
The girls flashed wide grins after they nailed big tricks. Australia’s Chloe Covell, 14, gestured to the audience to get louder before she skated. Fans in the stands obliged, stamping their feet, creating an undulating sound like thunder.
And when Daniela Terol, a 15-year-old from Spain, fell after trying to leap a set of stairs on the course, she got up and raised both arms in the air, triumphant.
“It’s honestly kind of insane how young the field is getting,” Team USA street skater Poe Pinson, 19, said after the competition. “There weren’t really that many girls skating when I was growing up, so it’s pretty cool.”
But as the kids keep coming younger and younger, the idea that they might be being pushed into competing by adults does unsettle some, including Pinson.
“I have mixed emotions about it,” she said. “I’m not a huge fan of all the pressure that is put on some people.”
Pinson wondered whether some of the skaters were in it for the love of the sport or for the achievements. “I can always tell whenever someone’s started skating and just became obsessed with skating – and whenever someone’s obsessed with contests,” she said.
She came in fifth behind a crew of younger competitors: the 14-year-old Coco Yoshizawa of Japan won gold, Akama was awarded silver, and Leal earned a bronze medal. Chenxi finished fourth.
But skateboarding is not the only sport with fresh young faces this year.
Also technically minors: Summer McIntosh, the 17-year-old Canadian swimmer who freestyle medley’d and butterflied her way to two gold medals; Rana Saadeldin, a 15-year-old swimmer from Sudan; Hezly Rivera, an American gymnast who just turned 16; and Ban Hyojin, a 16-year-old air-rifle shooter from South Korea who won a gold medal last Monday.
Young men are competing as well, including 17-year-old American swimmer Thomas Heilman and 16-year-old American sprinter Quincy Wilson. And skateboarder Ginwoo Onodera of Japan, who is 14.
Skating has quickly attracted the most young athletes, in part because it is a relatively new Olympic sport, having had its debut in Tokyo in 2021.
“The announcement that skateboarding would be included in the Olympics back in 2016, along with major shoe brands putting women forward more in their marketing, helped ignite a significant movement among young women in skateboarding,” said Ashley Rehfeld, an advocate for women’s skateboarding. She also noted that unlike a lot of other sports, “skateboarding is affordable and can be done right in front of your house”.
And while skateboarding can be just for fun, competing in the sport is a good way to get noticed – and to earn money.
Rehfeld said that contests are often “the best route to visibility and financial stability” since women’s skaters are often undersupported and don’t get as much attention from shoe brands and other sponsors.
But while there may be external pressure on these teens to perform, there was an obvious and genuine camaraderie on the course, with the girls rooting for each other, hugging and helping each other up after falls.
Alexis Sablone, the coach of the US women’s street skateboarding team, said that the benefit of working with younger skaters is their fearlessness and confidence.
“If you’re starting at a really young age and you see someone else doing something, you believe that’s possible and you just kind of like, skip to that,” she said.
“Certain things come with experience, but the flip side of that is more awareness and fear.”
Sablone would know. She began skating at the “old” age of 10. She competed in the sport’s Olympic debut in Tokyo and finished the women’s street competition in fourth place. The medal winners were 20 years her junior.
In the stands was Laura Thompson, 47, who travelled from Atlanta to watch with her 8-year-old son, Carter. She had no problems with the fact that the sport has competitors as young as 11. “I think it’s really awesome,” she said. In her mind it’s no different than organised school sports. “I mean, they could be playing football and get hurt.”
The multigenerational fandom was in full effect, and blossoming. Over the loudspeakers, 47-year-old retired professional skateboarder and announcer Tim O’Connor couldn’t help but gush as he provided commentary for spectators.
O’Connor proclaimed Coco Yoshizawa’s flawless run “a banger”. Zhu Yuanling’s tricks? “Super sick.” Liz Akama’s skating? “Perfect,” O’Connor said into the mic. “I’m jealous.”
And when the 12-year-old Vareeraya Sukasem fell on her first run, O’Connor complimented her “cool knee-slide out” on her kneepads.
Sukasem smiled, got up, and kept skating.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times
Written by: Dodai Stewart
Photographs by: James Hill and Karen Hanley
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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