by Luisa De la Concha Montes

Last summer, with four years of on-and-off skateboarding experience under my belt, I keenly tuned in to watch the skateboard showcase at the 2024 Olympics. I remember feeling envious as I saw the skaters stylishly dropping from huge concrete bowls. I mentally returned to the Level in Brighton, where I spent many hours unsuccessfully trying to land a trick, surrounded by familiar faces and the intense smell of weed. There was a huge gap between my memories of skateboarding and the perfectly smooth bowl on the screen. It was numerical and structured; too polished from what I knew as skateboarding. I turned my computer off, incredibly proud of Arisa Trew, Hiraki Cocona and Sky Brown, but feeling slightly detached. How did a sport that started as a form of protest (the legend says that skaters in L.A. would break into rich people’s houses to drain their pools and use them to skate) turn into a $4.8 billion business?

Continue reading →