Will the Olympics Ruin Skate or Ruin Surf?

[Howly Wolf]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Tex]

im not watching....that's what the wavepools are for!

[Howly Wolf]

Zzzz

[smithgrind]

I like to watch just about anything but surfing and skating. I did catch the women's street
finals because I was at work and there are monitors everywhere. Pretty pedestrian for my
level of interest.
I'm thrilled there is skating and surfing as a competition for the olympics but watching it doesn't
do anything for me.

[Major Lazer]

Da father and Olympic Medalist would be proud rn.

[Major Lazer]

Typhon swell comes through for the gold! Now if that thing could go extra tropical and kill this flat spell....

Watched some of the qualifiers. Airs and new school trickery make it interesting in sub par. Still that beachie on an average days looks better then good day here. Brother looked good and JJF hurt and kinda going through the paces. Haven't watched final will weigh in after.

[Howly Wolf]

Zzz

[Chanel Derrière]

The answer to the original question is yes. As much as we like to say there will always be a 'core' contingent of 'purists' in surf / skate culture, Olympic exposure will surely taint it and water it down for kids being exposed for the first time. The Rugby 7s and archery comps were more interesting.

https://foulweather.blogspot.com/2021/07/podiumed-tokyo-2021.html

[Major Lazer]

Woah da ole blogspot. Figured that platform was dead and unsupported. I think any of us old guys or gals that grew up skating and/or surfing long before the "www" will always defer to to "core" days often defaulting to nostalgia and will consider those times better and both ruined, surfing maybe sometime around 2000's when Blue Crush hit the big screens. Times when "skateboarding was a crime" or surfing was blackballed during the summer months from 8-5 and relegated to a street. Or when we were young enough to blast an air out of a 12' halfpipe with 3' of vert or super stoked to surf anything that was surfable even if it was thigh high choppy shore pound.

Many of us enjoyed the individualism and creativity that was not found in team sports and being relegated to practice time schedules and whatnot. Competitions and even uniforms (the blue Vans Eras of the Dogtown days to the trendy fashions of the Bones Brigade movies) are nothing new for both skating and surfing and surprising they have not made it to Olympics thus far. How old is the X Games now and there are plenty of more obscure sports to watch. Surfing and skateboarding are about as mainstream as you can get these days and in countries like Aus and Brazil surfing has been for decades. Even your Mom surfs and skate now.

It looks like both are here to stay in the Olympics and will just be one variable of a pursuit, art, sport, passion or whatever you want to call it. There were always be the inverse variable wheatear it be heads out on the streets finding that feature or heads chasing waves to the far reaches of the globe more than likely broadcasted and available to the masses though a continues and consistent social media feed for better or worse. The Summer Olympics are only every 4 years and well late to the party.

[Howly Wolf]

Zzz

[Major Lazer]

2024 in France? Not aware. My guess clamming Chopes.

As for skating my family sat and watched both "street skating" contests. I was happy to see the womens with 2 daughters, but girls\women skating is nothing new to them. TBH they found it boring, wife included. I get it, but my point was the reality of seeing that not every attempt is a make. Patience! Something I haven't seen either in a while mostly watching edits or short clips that don't tell the story of the 10 times it took to get the trick. Anyways I thought that was somewhat genuine for them. Otherwise was interesting to learn US skater was in her mid 30's and the youngest a Brazo was 13 I think, so a good span of time there. Nor did I realize how good (and competitive) the Japanese skaters were. They dominated the streets in both Men's and Women's. Now park should be more interesting.

[Howly Wolf]

Zzz

[Chanel Derrière]

The street skateboarding was insanely boring. Your wife and daughters were correct, ML. That kind of proves my point. Skateboarding will have very little appeal to a certain segment of society that would have once be enthralled by it. I hope all the disillusioned kids have something that speaks to them the way skateboarding did for us as an alternative to joining in with all the BS (including skateboarding) that's force fed to them.

Talk to me about Kenya Vs USA Rugby 7s... That shite was good.

I've never found surfings competitions interesting. I've tried watching that shite also. Infact the less I know about surfing the better these days.

As for Blogger, still way more readership than the OSP

[Tex]

good discussion above, thanks for rejoining Spent, we missed you bro...
I think the only competition I would watch is big wave paddle in surf comps. There is an element of danger/risk/creativity that makes that compelling. I wouldnt even watch a wave pool comp...waayyyy to boring, but surfing one, thats a different story. Its so funny how we see ourselves in the minds eye when surfing. My lady took some video of me surfing in SD. I should have NEVER reviewed the footage. All that to say, the fun actually carving up a Kelly Slater wave has to be exponentially more funner than watching yourself or anyone else do it.

[Chanel Derrière]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBGcnw20Ehk

The Illusion's take.