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.

Leo Baker (né Lacey Baker) coming out as transgender has all the narrow-minded and transphobes up in arms, especially because it meant he couldn’t represent his country at the Olympics. Oh for shame, for shame… Yes, the skateboarding community is gradually becoming more inclusive to the LGBQT population, but you know, there’s still a lot of knuckleheads out there, especially when it comes to so-called “core” skaters. Although I’m sure it only scratches the surface, this Time Magazine article provides really good insight into Leo’s journey and decision. It’s a must read for anybody that naively parrots “Why doesn’t he just skate and leave his personal life out of it?” [Photos: Ethan James Green for TIME]

Longtime Skate and Annoy readers might remember Dallas Oberholzer from the 2005 interview we published on the South African skate scene. While we’re officially ambivalent about skateboarding in the Olympics, it’s our pleasure to see him going there. Dallas gets around. We first ran into him in 2004 at the Oregon Trifecta contest series. Source: 947 – Photo @dallasaffrica

NBC Sports reports “The Russian Anti-Doping Agency says Maxim Kruglov, known as “Mad Maxim,” was punished under a rule against athletes who evade or refuse giving a drug-test sample.” So yes, a top Russian skateboarder was hit with doping ban. Is he a top Russian skateboarder? Where are our Russian readers? (Not the ones trying to brute force their way into the back end of the site…) I don’t think the Olympics is the place for skateboarding. I don’t think skateboarding needs the Olympics. At most, a few winners might get their faces on a Wheaties box, and maybe a few “training facilities” get built. The biggest benefits are going to be for soft drinks and soft goods manufacturers. I also don’t think the Olympics are going to somehow ruin skateboarding. Keep skateboarding for the core skaters? That ship has sailed. Hey kids, if you want to skateboard in the Olympics, follow their rules. No collusion.

Yesterday we saw preliminary reports that Julie Lynn Kindstrand may have been sexually assaulted as a minor by Neal Hendrix, but the source was abstracted enough that we left it until today to post. These are serious accusations, and we didn’t want to post something half-baked. Since then it has started appearing on ESPN and the Wall Street Journal. Neal Hendrix denies the allegations. Julie Kindstrand has provided a six page document to the Costa Mesa police, as well as the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee. Although suspended, Neal Hendrix is still listed (at the time of this publication) as an Athlete Representative and Executive Committee member on the USA Skateboarding web site. Update: Video statement from Julie. NOTICE: Comments will remain open on this thread. Anything misogynistic or overtly inflammatory, such as threats of harm will result in an immediate ban. It’s time to be an adult.

The July 1996 edition of High Times features the pot smoker’s dude to un-Olympic sports, with New York City’s Ryan Hickey getting “high” air on the cover. I do not own this issue, so I don’t know what they had to say about skateboarding. Now that skateboarding is going to be an olympic sport, will they print a retraction?

International Olympic Committee Announced street and park skateboarding events to debut in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.  The IOC has some live video of the even with a horrible interface, but there’s an interesting bit where a reporter asks about the lawsuits in one of the so-called governing bodies of skateboarding, as well as anti-doping. The  Tokyo Skateboarding Commission sounds like a criminal investigation, but it is in fact, ” a partnership between the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports and the International Skateboarding Federation formed under the guidance of the International Olympic Committee. The TSC is in charge of all aspects of producing the Skateboard Street and Park Terrain events at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.”  Now that skateboarding is in the Olympics, maybe we’ll finally get some skateparks built… oh yeah. Well maybe our top athletes will be able to earn a living… oh yeah… It’s all moot now.

It looks like the long, protracted war is finally over as Skateboarding will be proposed for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, so it’s pretty much a fait accompli. The International Skateboarding Federation is excited about it. Who is in that federation, some notables for sure. Also, the Telegraph definitely thinks I’m too old to skateboard. On a positive note, four Canadian skateboarders are being honored for stopping a sexual assault and helping to apprehend the culprit. (The image on the top left is from Mpora, who has a lot to say about the Olympic announcement but for some reason can’t bring themselves to actually link to it.)

ABC News and just about everyone else has reported that the Tokyo Olympic Committee has recommended adding skateboarding to the 2020 Olympics. This is by no means a done deal, the host country gets to recommend one or more sports, and Japan recommended 5, 6 actually if count Baseball separate from Softball, which you should. Baseball being the mens’ competition and softball for women. The other three are sport climbing, karate, and surfing. The International Olympic Committee will decide which if any to include in August of 2016. The chances seem pretty good however. Surfing conditions can’t be guaranteed unless they build an amazing inland wave facility, and how would the surfing community respond to that? Now that Street League has ironed out a decent spectator friendly competition format, (If you’re into that, not that there’s anything wrong with it…) we might just see skateboarding in the Olympics, whether you want to or not. Who is behind the push to get skateboarding in the Olympics? There’s a shady organization called the World Skateboarding Federation for one. Their web site appears to be down, so I can’t comment on the board members or their mission as I’m writing this post. All…

Tony Hawk has some inside association with talks to bring skateboarding to the 2020 summer Olympics. He thinks’s it’s going to happen. Meanwhile, poor Larry… It’s painful to watch Larry King try to be funny and hip with Tony Hawk on his show “Larry King Now” on Ora.tv. It looks like his new “network” is online only. You can watch the olympics specific bit as an outtake on Youtube. The entire 28 minute interview is online via Hulu, which means it could disappear at any minute. And speaking of Tony Hawk, I just saw part of a schlocky Billy Crystal movie that featured Tony Hawk wiping out in the middle of a vert run because a small child was peeing off the deck onto the transition during an X-Games practice. I am not making this up! It’s called Parental Guidance.