Skateboarding

For the magazine, see Skateboarder (magazine).

Skateboarding is an action sport where people ride and do tricks on a skateboard. It is also a fun hobby, an art form, a job in the entertainment industry, and a way to get around. Skateboarding started in the United States, and many skateboarders have shaped it over the years.

A 2009 report estimated that the skateboarding market earns about $4.8 billion a year. It also found that there were about 11.08 million active skateboarders in the world. In 2016, it was announced that skateboarding would be part of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, with teams for both men and women. Skateboarding made its Olympic debut in 2020 and was also included in the 2024 Games.

Since the 1970s, skateparks have been built for skateboarders, freestyle BMXers, aggressive skaters, and more recently, scooter riders. However, in some places where skateboarding is allowed, it has caused problems. Skateboarders have damaged curbs, stone surfaces, steps, benches, plazas, and parks.

History

Skateboarding began in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Surfers in California wanted something to do when the waves were flat. They called it "sidewalk surfing." By the 1960s, companies in Southern California were making skateboards, and magazines and television shows helped the sport become popular. Interest dropped in the late 1960s and stayed low until the early 1970s. Then a new polyurethane wheel gave riders better grip and performance, and the sport became popular again. In the 1970s and 1980s, skateboarders built skateparks and invented new tricks. By the early 1980s, though, the sport had declined once more.

In the 1990s, street skateboarding became the most common style, and boards became smaller and lighter. By 2001, more young people in the United States rode skateboards than played baseball. Go Skateboarding Day was started in 2003 and is celebrated every year on June 21. Skateboarding made its debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The competitions were held in July and August 2021.

Trick skating

As skateparks and ramps became popular, skateboarding changed. Early tricks were mostly simple moves. People rode on two wheels ("wheelie" or "manual"), spun on the back wheels (a "pivot"), jumped over a bar and landed back on the board (a "hippie jump"), jumped from one board to another, and weaved between poles (slalom). Another popular trick was the Bertlemann slide, named after Larry Bertelemann's surfing moves.

In 1976, Alan "Ollie" Gelfand invented the ollie, which changed skateboarding. At first it was mostly done in Florida. Then Gelfand visited California in the summer of 1978. His moves caught the eye of skaters and the media on the West Coast, and the ollie spread around the world. In 1982, Rodney Mullen changed the ollie so it could be done on flat ground. Mullen also invented the "Magic Flip," which was later renamed the kickflip. He created many other tricks too, including the 360 Kickflip. This trick joins a 360 pop shove-it and a kickflip into one move. The flat ground ollie is the basis of many street tricks. A newer trick, the (/wiki/1080_(skateboarding)), was first landed by Tom Schaar in 2012.

Culture

See also: Skate punk, Punk fashion, Category:Skateboarding videos, and Skate video

The 1986 skateboarding movie Thrashin' helped make skateboarding popular. It was directed by David Winters and starred Josh Brolin. The movie features famous skaters, including Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, and Steve Caballero. It also helped lead to Lords of Dogtown. Catherine Hardwicke, who directed that film, worked on Thrashin' as a production designer. There she became friends with many of these skaters. At first, skateboarding was linked to surfing. As it spread across the United States to places that had never surfed, it grew its own style. The short film Video Days (1991) showed skateboarders as "reckless rebels." In 1964, the California duo Jan and Dean recorded "Sidewalk Surfin'." This song used the tune of the Beach Boys song "Catch a Wave," but with new words about skateboarding instead of surfing.

Some cities still do not want skate parks built in their neighborhoods. People there worry about more crime and drugs. Magazines such as Thrasher often show skateboarding as rough, rebellious, and still connected to punk. Other magazines, like Transworld Skateboarding, show a wider and more controlled picture. Many professional skaters now use hip-hop, reggae, or hard rock music in their videos. This has drawn many young city people and fans of those music styles to the sport. Some all-girls skateboarding groups exist too, such as Brujas in New York City. Many of the women in these groups use their crews to express their own style. They also find a safe place to skate and make friends, without pressure from boys. Skateboarders today often film and edit videos of themselves and their friends. Their culture values finding new places and learning new tricks more than copying others. Popular skateboarding video games include the Tony Hawk series and the Skate series.

Further information: List of skateboarding video games

Early skateboarders often rode barefoot, which led to foot injuries. This meant they needed shoes made for skateboarding. Examples include the Randy "720," made by the Randolph Rubber Company, and Vans sneakers, which became icons of skateboarding in the 1970s and '80s. A leading early trend was the sticky-soled slip-on skate shoe. It became popular because of Sean Penn's skateboarding character in the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Tony Hawk once said, "If you were wearing Vans shoes in 86, you were a skateboarder." Vans helped pay for the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys. It was the first sneaker company to sponsor a professional skateboarder, Stacy Peralta, and it has sponsored many events, including the Vans Warped Tour. Other shoe brands, including Converse, Nike, DC Shoes, Globe, Adidas, Zoo York, and World Industries, also began making skate shoes. Many professional skateboarders get a shoe with their own name on it after they get a skateboarding sponsorship. Sole Technology, which makes the etnies shoe brand, has worked with cities to build public skateparks. One example is the etnies Skatepark in Lake Forest, California.

Further information: Skateboard deck

Being yourself and having a relaxed style have always been valued. Skateboarders usually do not wear uniforms. This style often shows in the designs on the bottom of skateboard decks. Starting in the mid-1970s, Wes Humpston and Jim Muri painted designs by hand for Dogtown Skateboards and created the "Dogtown Cross." Earlier skateboards were based on "Sidewalk Surfing" and were linked to surf culture. They looked like surfboards with few pictures. In the 1980s, artists helped shape deck art as punk rock and new wave music mixed with skateboarding. Jim Phillips created the "Screaming Hand," which became the main logo for Santa Cruz Skateboards. Vernon Courtlandt Johnson made skeleton and skull art for Powell Peralta. Other notable artists include Andy Jenkins, Todd Bratrud, Neil Blender, Marc McKee, Tod Swank, Mark Gonzales, Lance Mountain, Natas Kaupas, and Jim Evans. Many people now collect skateboards for their artistic value. Famous artists such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring have also made limited editions. Most professional skateboarders today have signature decks printed with computer graphics.

Skateboards have also become valuable collectibles. In January 2019, Sotheby's in New York auctioned a full set of the 248 skateboard deck designs that Supreme had ever sold. The set was collected by Ryan Fuller. The full set sold for $800,000 to 17-year-old Carson Guo from Vancouver, who plans to show them in a local gallery. In 2014, New York based SHUT Skateboards offered a gold-plated skateboard for $15,000. At that time, it was the most expensive skateboard in the world. In 2019, artist Adrian Wilson created the SUPREME Mundi. It mixes an artist's palette with a skateboard. It was a comment on the auction bids for the Supreme decks and on the restored Salvator Mundi, which a New York art gallery sold for $20,000.

Safety

Skateboards, in-line skates, and scooters can be risky. Riders may be thrown off by small cracks and bumps in the pavement, especially when the cracks run across the way they are going. Hitting a bump is the main cause of falls and injuries. The risk may be lower at higher speeds. Serious injuries are fairly rare. A skateboarder who falls usually gets scrapes, cuts, bruises, and sprains. Many injuries are broken bones, usually in the leg or arm. Many injured skateboarders are very new to the sport. Less common are head injuries, and sometimes they are very serious.

Riding on streets also brings the danger of other traffic. Skateboarders may be hit by vehicles or fall into traffic. Skateboarders can also pose a risk to others, because a board may roll or fly into a person after a fall. Many places require skateboarders to wear bicycle helmets. Other gear, such as wrist guards, also helps protect riders. Some researchers have suggested limiting skateboarding to special areas. In Norway, the use, ownership, and sale of skateboards were forbidden from 1978 to 1989 because of many injuries caused by boards. Skateboarders built ramps in forests and other hidden places to avoid the police. The country had one legal skatepark, in Frogner Park in Oslo.

Other uses and styles

For styles of skateboarding, see Skateboarding styles.

Some people use skateboards only to get around, and a longboard is often used for this. Depending on local laws, riding outside housing areas may or may not be allowed. Supporters say that skateboarding is easy to carry, good exercise, and kinder to the environment than cars. Trampboarding uses a board without trucks or wheels on a trampoline. The trampoline's bounce lifts the rider for tricks, while skateboarders must lift themselves by doing an ollie. Trampboarding appears in many videos on YouTube.

In the late 1990s, the United States Marine Corps tested ordinary skateboards during urban combat military exercises. The program was called Urban Warrior '99. Its special purpose was moving through buildings to look for tripwires and snipers. Other styles include swing boarding, where a skateboard deck hangs from a point above the rider so they can swing through the air. Horseboarding is a team sport from the United Kingdom. In horseboarding, a mountainboarder is pulled behind a horse and rider around a course of marked gates four metres wide. Rounds are timed, and penalties are given for knocked-off balls.

Controversy

Skateboarding can damage things in cities, such as curbs, benches, and ledges, when skateboarders do "grinds" and other tricks on them. Some companies use skate deterrent devices, like the Skatestopper, to prevent damage and to reduce skateboarding on these surfaces. Many cities post signs that say "Skateboarding is not allowed" and make rules against it to protect people and property. On streets, police may give tickets to skateboarders or arrest them for trespassing and vandalism.

Skateboarding is a big problem at Freedom Plaza. The Plaza is a National Park within the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site in Washington, D.C. Many people like to skate there, even though it is not allowed and police have taken action. The Plaza has copies of parts of Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the nation's capital city set into its marble surface. A 2016 National Park Service management plan says that skating has damaged stonework, sculptures, walls, benches, steps, and other surfaces. It also says that some people have removed "No Skateboarding" signs. During the 2013 federal government shutdown in the United States, a professional skateboarder encouraged people to use government sites for skating on Facebook.