By Amy Tennery
PARIS (Reuters) – The Paris Games have fully embraced skateboarding, with its youthful appeal and blockbuster television ratings, but skaters say they have to stay off their boards inside the Olympic village.
American women’s park competitor Minna Stess had been eager to ride her board around the 52-hectare village, where some 14,500 athletes and their staff are free to mingle without the COVID restrictions that limited competitors at the Tokyo Games.
There was just one problem with that plan.
“You get yelled at,” said the 18-year-old Stess.
Skateboarding’s reputation has changed rapidly after its inclusion in the Olympics programme in Tokyo three years ago, as the suit-and-tie decision makers at the IOC welcomed the sport that was once squarely rejected by the mainstream.
The Olympic village, however, has not embraced skateboards, with the sport viewed as a nuisance as it was in decades past.
“I rode bikes around, but I was like looking out the balcony to see (U.S. street competitor Paige Heyn) coming back because I hadn’t seen her – she was at practice – and some dude yelled at her for skating,” Stess told reporters.
“So, I’m kind of scared to skate at the village.”
The 18-year-old had no fear, however, as she claimed bronze at the World Championships last year and is hoping to make an impact in Paris after she missed qualifying for Tokyo.
“Winning a medal just, you know, for your country and just for yourself too, is a big honour,” she said.
Her U.S. teammate Nyjah Huston, who competes in men’s street, said skating for the United States on the Olympic stage was “extra motivation.”
Huston, who said he was surprised to have got away with skating at the Tokyo village, finished seventh at the last Games.
“Skateboarding came from America – California, specifically, where I’m from. And I feel like it’s our duty to go out there and rip,” he told reporters. “Rip it for the country.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in Paris; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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