A Brief History of Skateboarding in the Olympics

Hey, did you hear? Skateboarding is/was in the Olympics! This made some people really happy, and an equal amount really cranky, if not downright mad. Here at Skate and Annoy it made us feel ambivalent because, let’s face it, the counterculture era of skateboarding died circa 2005. OK, I take that back there is definitley a healthy DIY counterculture, especially when it comes to rconcrete, but that’s got nothing to do with the Olympics, or 75% of the skateboarders out there. Of course, this post is 100% not what the title says it is, but man, think of those SEO hits we’d be getting. Too bad we don’t have any cost per click advertising… This is instead, some little Olympic themed skateboarding tchotches mostly brought you by friend of the S&A Josh Baker, AKA @beachpartyattitude.

Check out his little Neo-Hummel figurine.

He comes from a Fisher-Price Little People set that includes a surfer(?) a predictably Asian martial arts guy, and some sort of new wave submissive bondage figure.

But the whole Team USA set!

Skateboarding is all about your imagination and creativity, which is why this Tokyo 2020 skateboarder from Hotwheels is so darned… pathetic. It looks like it was conceived of and executed over a weekend. In reality, they just re-branded an existing Hotwheels skateboard figure (car?) that I somehow didn’t know exitsed.

Here’s a closeup of this inspiring, quality product from Mattel

Here’s a pin featuring the 2020 Olympic mascot Miraitowa. What are they doing? If only there was some way to know… Oh wait, that’s it! They are “Skateboarding!”

Here’s a pin featuring 1996 Atlanta Olympic mascot Izzy, who is a…. I’m not sure. The likeness on the pin is bad, but the character defies form as well. I’m not sure why it says skateboarding. Was skateboarding a demonstration sport in the 1996 Olympics? No, according to Top End Sports. Who knows the scoop?

Lastly, here’s a sticker saying “Make Skateboarding an Olympic Sport – 1984.” Here’s the interesting thing, this sticker dates to 1975 as part of a set of “Professional” bubblegum skateboarding cards with stickers on side. In 1975, the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles were the next scheduled Olympics to take place in the United Sates. The stickers in these sets were really wacky, (Gallery coming soon!) so you can’t take it too seriously as part of some larger, organized effort. However, there is some chatter in Skateboarder magazine in the 1975 issues, and maybe even later. I suspect this was an entirely industry-driven movement as opposed to a grassroots organization.

I bought two NS boxes of these stickers of eBay several years ago, with the intent to put up a gallery. It seems liek a good time to finally do that. Here’s shot of the package. Don’t even try to eat the gum. This advice is from personal experience. 35 year old gum… it’s bad. Really bad.