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Paris 2024 Preview: Skateboarding


Making its second Olympic appearance, Australia’s Skateboarding team has almost doubled in numbers from Tokyo 2020, with plenty of debutants seeking their slice of Olympic history.


Overview

Skateboarding made its debut at the Tokyo Olympic Games where 17-year-old Aussie, Keegan Palmer made history winning gold in the men’s Park event. 


Australia’s nine-member Skateboarding team for the Paris 2024 is an increase from the five selected for the 2020 Games. Qualifying nine of a maximum 12 spots, Australia will field the fourth largest skate team, behind the USA (12), Brazil (12) and Japan (10).


In the Park event, reigning Olympic champion Keegan and Kieran Woolley return for their second Games while 14-year-old Arisa Trew and 15-year-old Ruby Trew (not related) both make their Olympic debut.


Shane O’Neill, 34, returns for his second Olympic appearance in the Street event, alongside Olympic debutantes Chloe Covell, Haylie Powell, Liv Lovelace and debutant Keefer Wilson.


The team enters Paris with a wealth of international success, including Arisa and Keegan both having won the Olympic Qualifying Series in June and 14-year-old Chloe a 2023 World Championship silver medallist.


The Skateboarding competition will be held from Saturday 27 July to Sunday 28 July for Street, and from Tuesday 6 August to Wednesday 7 August 2024 for Park at the La Concorde venue in Paris. In the heart of Paris, the La Concorde venue, along with the Grand Palais, the Eiffel Tower Stadium and Champ-de-Mars Arena, will temporarily be transformed into an urban park.


Ones to Watch 

Street - Women 

Chloe Covell, 14, is one to watch in the women’s Street. Her consistency across the Olympic cycle means she is regularly ranked inside the top 10. While her Olympic Qualifier Series didn’t deliver the podium’s results she wanted, Chloe enters the Games ranked sixth and with a World Championship silver to her name. 


Japan has dominated the women’s Street circuit, taking out the top four places in the final Olympic Qualifier leading into Paris, with 14-year-old Yoshizawa Coco the one to watch. Brazil’s Rayssa Leal is one that Aussie Shane O’Neill has also tipped. 


Street - Men 

The veteran of the team, Shane represents Australia in the men’s Street. His experience speaks for itself: He is still one of only a handful of skaters to have won gold in all four major skateboarding contests, the X Games, Street League Skateboarding, the Tampa Pro and the World Skateboarding Championship, proving he knows what it takes to win on the big days. 


Japan will again be the one to watch in Paris, with defending Olympic Champion, Horigome Yuto ranked third behind his fellow teammates 14-year-old Ginwoo Onodera and Sora Shirai. 


Park - Women

Australia’s Arisa Trew has set the world on fire in the last 12 months coming into the Paris Olympics, the 14-year-old winning both stages of the Olympic Qualifier Series and comes in ranked second in the world.  


Like the Street events, Japan has a strong hold across the Park events with defending Olympic champion Sakura Yosozumi sitting third in the world rankings along with new talent 15-year-old Cocona Hiraki. The UK’s Sky Brown, 2022 Women’s Park World Champion, is one of the most famous skateboarders in the world today. An adept surfer, she has previously considered competing in both board sports at Olympic level.


Park - Men

Australia’s Keegan Palmer has his sights set on defending his Olympic gold medal in Paris, with his recent victory at the Olympic Qualifier in Budapest giving the 21-year-old the confidence boost he was looking for after coming back from injury. 

Keegan, who currently resides in the USA, will need to lookout for his good mates from Team USA including Tate Carew, Gavin Bottger and Tom Schaar, who all delivered podium results across the two Olympic Qualifiers.


Sport Format 

Skateboarding may be one sport, but the Park and Street courses are completely different to each other. Park competitions take place on a course that is a hollowed-out concrete bowl with several different elements including ramps, quarter pipes and bumps. On the other hand, Street skaters use the urban environment as a playground.


Therefore, those competitions take place on a course using obstacles you would find on the street, such as stairs, ledges, curbs, and handrails.

Many techniques are the same in both disciplines, including grinding, where skaters use the metal around the wheels to move, and sliding, where skaters use the deck of the board.


However, the differing course environments add different dynamics to each event. In Park competition, the crowd often enjoys watching multiple air tricks. Skaters take advantage of the sloping sides of the course to build momentum and speed before launching themselves into the air to perform amazing tricks. Many variations combine with skaters flipping or rotating the board, turning their bodies, grabbing the deck, or posing in the air.


What distinguishes Street from Park is the number of obstacles that Street skaters have to negotiate. Street skaters showcase their skills with grinds and slides, performing a variety of ollies - where the skater and board launch into the air without the skater holding the board with their hands. Skaters use ollies to jump onto rails or ledges and grind or slide on the obstacles. During this process, the athletes will create a variety of combinations in their runs, adding originality and difficulty to the performance. As the two disciplines differ so much, only a few skaters compete in both at the top level. 


Park

Skaters attempt three 45-second runs with each skater’s best score from the three runs used to define who advances to the final. In the final, skaters again complete three runs, with each skater’s best run determining the medallists. Skaters will usually tweak their runs as they go along to get higher scores. 


Street

The Street competition is split into two phases; the first phase consists of two 45-second runs where skaters perform a series of tricks using the obstacles on the course, while the second phase consists of a ‘best trick’ section where skaters have five attempts to perform their most impressive tricks. The combined highest scores (one from the run and two from the trick section) in the preliminary round will determine which eight contestants make it through to the final. The same format is repeated for the final round. 


Competition Schedule

27 July - Men’s Street.  Preliminary round and finals.Aussies competing: Shane O’Neil 

28 July - Women’s Street. Preliminary round and finals.Aussies competing: Chloe Covell, Olivia Lovelace, Hayley Powell

6 August - Women’s Park. Preliminary round and finals.Aussies competing: Arissa Trew & Ruby Trew (not related).

7 August - Men’s Park. Preliminary round and finals.Aussies competing: Keegan Palmer, Keefer Wilson, Kieran Woolley




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