Elder-skatesman Tony Hawk is in Paris covering Olympic skateboarding and he got an opportunity to take a cruise through the skateboard park venue before events kicks off on Tuesday August 6th. Competing in the Olympics wasn’t an option for the Birdman when he was in his prime (skateboarding made its Olympic debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo) but he doesn’t have any regrets not being able to represent USA:
“When people ask me if I have regrets that skateboarding wasn’t in the Olympics when I was younger, the answer is an emphatic no. Because now I exist in a rare space that allows me to do the coolest side quests beyond anything I could ever imagined.“
Hard to believe Tony is 56-years-old and still able to skate like this. Incredible.
Tony Hawk may be rooting for Team USA but his longtime pal Andy Macdonald is in France to compete for Great Britain. Defying all odds, Andy qualified to represent England at age 51:
I’ve been friends with this guy for the last 30 years and he is one of the most talented, hardcore skaters you’ll ever meet. And he set his sights on an audacious, outlandish goal in 2016: to qualify for the Olympic games as he approached the age of 50.
I watched him from afar modify (compromise) his vertical skill set to the smaller transitions & walls of park events, struggling to get enough height for flip tricks and proper spins. But he persevered with his deep bag of tricks and made it work, flying to every event, quietly collecting points in hopes of making the crucial cutoff for Paris.
It all came down to the last runs of the final qualifier in Budapest and the stars aligned. Some of it was luck, but mostly it was because of his resolute determination, hard work, well-rounded skills, and a devotion to skating unlike any other. Andy Macdonald is 51 and can now add “Olympian” to his storied list of accolades. Not that any of us expected – or even wanted – to be here in our formative years. But we couldn’t ask for a better representative of our outcast generation on the world stage.
Allons-y Andy!
-Tony Hawk
