Founder Series Ep.4 - Skateboarding in Olympics, Is it worth it?

FOUNDER SERIES

Episode 4 - Skateboarding in Olympics, Is it worth it?

Namaskaram everybody! This is Vaibhav(founder), from Piso Skateboards :) How is everybody doing? Welcome back to the founder series. If you have not read the previous articles you can read it here. So in today's topic I will be sharing my thoughts & perspective on skateboarding being included in Olympics. 

What is Olympics? Is it only sports and medals or something more?:
Before we proceed lets understand Olympics from a broader perspective so that we do not get biased. Olympics is one international sports event which we all know and is one of the key factors to bring the world closer and keep harmony within the nations. Due to Olympics, people from various countries come together and play series of sports together like a sports festival. Its a wonderful way to live together on this planet I feel, keeping the medals aspect aside. It creates so much harmony and understanding about all the countries across the globe. In some way it helps maintain peace and integrity amongst the nations and people around the world through the medium of sports.

So Olympics for sure is a great event that world gets to witness and experience. But... along with it comes the competitive mindset of a sportsman, influence and mental health. Yes competitiveness is needed in any sport, without being competitive Olympics or any other sport cannot happen in the first place. So competitiveness is very vital for any sports to happen on the national or international platform. But an individual, should play the sport with a certain sense of awareness that it is just a sport which is played for fun primarily. In any given sport everybody cannot win, and we should be ok with it. Not just the athlete but also the citizens of the country. I still get to hear news of stone pelting when a country looses, especially in cricket or football finals. This is not the right way to see a sport. I would say it no longer remains a sport if we have such mentality within our society. The competitiveness part has entered people's minds. It influences and hijacks human mind so much that it becomes tough to act sane or think with clarity. Olympics is not the issue, it's our mentality and this is the reality. 

So skateboarding or any other sport entering Olympic is definitely not the problem. A whole lot of sports have been ruined not because they entered Olympics, rather they have been ruined because the society which we all live in. Yes I agree execution of the whole selection process and stuff may not up to the mark or well planned/or not well put by the authorities yet. But we do have to understand that its just the initial years, there is a still long way to go. India itself is still a developing and a poor country. Comparing it with established countries like USA/Australia which also happen to have population way lesser than India is not a fair comparison. India has just completed 75 years of independence after being looted by various intruders. It needs loads of infra for sports facilities so that youth can strive through sports and excel.

But on the other side we also have to understand that sports infra is not the only issue in our country. There are a whole lot of other issues in other sectors which our country faces, and it will take time for a country of such a large scale to develop through the democracy route. Yep our country is not perfect or may not be up to the standards. It needs a lot of work, we all have to come together and work towards it in whatever way possible rather than playing blame games.

Skateboarding in Olympics:
Coming back to skateboarding or any other sport, its up to us as a generation how we treat the sport and competitiveness on an individual level. We should teach our kids to have fun in sport and not to focus on winning or loosing, or to focus on making a career out of it at a very young age. Let kids just have fun with whatever they are doing, once they grow up, may be then you can take a call if they really want to play at a national or the international level. It's completely fine to play a sport and not compete in any national or international level. A sport is meant to be played :). This aspect should be first fixed in our minds. Later comes the winning and loosing aspects of it, and we should be ok whichever way it goes. 

I often receive DM's from parents on Instagram. They want kids to be influencers, sponsored athletes. Some kids are hardly 4 years old and their parents send DM's for sponsorship and convincing how it will be profitable for Piso in the future (just ridiculous!). If competitive mentality enters in a kid at a very early stage, it may happen she may win a medal some day in future but its for sure going to affect the mental health of the child in the long run. When the kid grows, he/she will have to pay a huge price for this and reversing it might be tough at later stages. Let kids be kids! and let them have fun :) 

Coming to the downside of the execution of selection process and support from the government, it'll take some time for things to get better I suppose. Expecting smooth and efficient execution process for a sport like skateboarding in India is almost impossible at this stage. The sports which are already established and are being played in Olympics like wrestling etc. were already in the news for malpractices. So for a sport like skateboarding which is at a baby stage, to be properly organized, it's definitely going to take some time. It is similar to expecting a new born child to run like Usain Bolt! Give it some time and let us all give the right ambience for it to grow.

I do agree that for the athletes who train themselves hard to perform, it's heartbreaking. Unfortunately it's the reality of our country, and we all should come together at our individual level in our respective community to make it better. May be one day if all the sports communities come together in their respective domain and work on grass root levels, next generation may get a fair and a solid platform to showcase their talent on the Olympics level :).

Why is the Skateboarding community worried about the Olympic thingy:
We all know what skateboarding and its culture is :). For new readers/skaters; skateboarding is a lifestyle or a certain way of living where there is freedom and you can express yourself freely within the community. Everyone is invited to participate irrespective of differences and boundaries. The reason why a skater cannot leave skateboarding is because of the freedom and stability which it gets internally by just staying with the community. So the obvious fear amongst the community is that once it goes to Olympics, the sport's culture will get ruined and it will get commercialized.

Yes, it's true that this is going to happen. To what extent it will happen depends on us. How we take it forward and stick to the roots will decide what happens tomorrow. I could clearly see few upsetting changes in mentality of new skaters in India and around the world after skateboarding being added in Olympics. But I personally feel, its Okay! If we want skateboarding to strive especially in developing countries, skateboarding being included in Olympics is a boost for all of us. It will be easier to get more people to skate and spread the gift of skateboarding to more people. 

How the new generation reciprocates will depend on how the older generation is running the show. It may happen tomorrow that this sport will get commercialized or stay more competitive & that is totally fine to some extent. We cannot have everything the way we want. If we need infra in our country, especially the developing countries then skateboarding in Olympics is needed. I would like to say to the older generation of skaters, just have fun and share the joy of skateboarding with everyone like we used to. That is all we need to do :).

Whatever the selection processes are at the current stage in the world (not just India), meet with your local bodies and see how we can make it better with whatever we have got (Respectfully, no blame games!). We have got the most amazing tool of skateboarding been added in Olympics. Only problem is we have not figured out how to align it and use it well. This addition will also create so many employment opportunities for youth and everybody involved if we align it right. Give it some time and may be one day it will happen. That is what i wish. 

I see a lot of individuals on social media try to defame brands, authorities, personalities to showcase their frustration. Feels sad to see this happen at times. Social media is not the way to solve this problem, it may make the situation even more worse. Communication and patience is the only way we can find a solution. At times it may get ugly and that is ok, we are just trying to make this sport a little better. Do not try to let it get in your head and spoil your mental health and the situation too! If such things happen, just go out and skate (have fun).

Positive Changes of Skateboarding being added in Olympics:
I could definitely see positive impacts of skateboarding being added in Olympics. If any skater skates on the streets and say may be cops/strangers come and question you, we get to say we are athletes & skateboarding is part of Olympics. It gives huge leverage and communication becomes way smoother and respectful between both the parties. Its a hugeeee plus I would say at times when situation becomes out of control.

Another very positive impact which happened in india I could notice is more skateparks and facilities are coming up day by day. All the current generation of skaters should know that 10 years back, skateparks in India was like a dream within a dream! Back then, there were handful of skate friendly areas in the whole of India. Today, I can say we may have around 70-80 skate-spots/parks/skate friendly infras all around the country. Getting permission from governments, or putting forward a proposal to build a skatepark in your respective cities has become easier because of the recognition. It is not a small thing, those OG skaters who dealt with all these formalities know the value of skateboarding being added to Olympics, especially the skatepark(100 Ramps, Bombay SB, Skateable) and the community builders.

In the end I would like to say, yes there are few critical issues in the management for various sports all across the globe (not just skateboarding). They may get resolved in future or may not get resolved at all. Its not completely in our hands to make it happen. Tomorrow it may happen that skateboarding will become commercialized or competitive due to various factors discussed above. But to play any sport as a sport is definitely in our hands. We need to redefine what playing a sport means in today's society. So just have fun playing your respective sport and be happy about it :), its that simple!

Embed from Getty Images

That's a wrap up on this topic everyone. I have tried my best to express my thoughts by not being biased towards anything. So see you in the next episode! Next episode will come out next Friday 8pm. To stay updated on our blogs, sign up to our newsletter (Sign up box is on our homepage, at the bottom).

See you in the next episode, stay tuned :).

Up Next (releasing on 16th August 2024)
Episode 5 - Skateboarding, a journey to the beyond.

Previous chapters if you haven't read:
Founder series Episode 1 - Why I choose Skateboarding?
Founder series Episode 2 - How to convert passion into a reality?
Founder series Episode 3 - Injuries, a skater's perspective.

Keep pushing.
Vaibhav Rasam

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