ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the inclusion of skateboarding into the Olympic Games. The chapter begins with an overview of why skateboarding was so attractive to the IOC, despite the many challenges it posed as an Olympic sport. Herein we discuss the concept of the “Urban Park” as an important development for the Tokyo Olympics and beyond, and recent efforts by the IOC to “bring sport to the people”. Drawing upon our longitudinal research, we then illustrate how the skateboarding culture has responded over time to Olympic inclusion, with attitudes shifting quickly, in some instances as a result of strategic collaborations within and across the skateboarding industry. We discuss the concerns among skateboarders about the compromises that have to be made for them to “fit” within the highly regulated and rule-bound structures of organised, elite, competitive sport, with a particular focus on how attitudes have evolved over time in relation to key issues: uniforms; organisation and qualification; and drugs. Ultimately, this chapter reveals the relationship between skateboarding and the Olympic Movement as one of flexible and forgetful opposition, with much contradiction (at times) and a rather short cultural memory.
