Q&A: Skateboarding at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics

Skateboarding debuted as an Olympic sport at the 2020 Japan Summer Games — postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic — to a nearly empty stadium. The sport will return with much more fanfare at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, which begin on July 26. The skateboarding schedule opens with Street prelims July 27-28 and ends with Park finals August 6-7.

Skateboarder and assistant professor of sociology Neftalie Williams will be there. Williams is director of the San Diego State University Center for Skateboarding, Action Sports, and Social Change and studies skateboarding's impact on society and the racial politics of the sport. He is also a skateboarding diplomat, serving as an envoy to the U.S. Department of State as its first “ambassador of skateboarding.”

SDSU NewsCenter’s Susanne Clara Bard caught up with Williams and discussed what it means for skateboarding to have joined the ranks of other popular Olympic sports.

What is the significance of skateboarding at this year’s Games?

I'm excited for everyone to actually see how wonderful the skateboarding community is in-person this Olympics. They will see for themselves that skateboarders are such a diverse group — that it’s not one particular demographic that participates in the sport and in the culture. 

It’s an amazing global scene with representation from Brazil, Australia, Japan, Great Britain and South Africa, just to name a few countries. It’s not just a U.S.-led sport. People everywhere can see themselves reflected in skateboarding at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

Tell me more about the skateboarding community at the Olympics.

Skateboarding at the Olympics is an intense global competition, but it also embodies camaraderie and community. Skaters all talk to each other regardless of what country they represent. They see each other as individuals with a shared love that connects them. That is sometimes missing from the larger conversation about sport. It's not just one country versus another in skateboarding, but an opportunity to think about what sport can be in our lives.

In Tokyo, the press had the opportunity to actually see how much the skateboarding community supports itself — from the medal winners stepping off the podium to take their pics side-by-side to gender non-binary athletes like Alana Smith using the Olympic platform to advocate for their community and for other marginalized folks. It makes me proud of the skateboarding community. 

How is SDSU involved?

I'm very excited to be going to Paris and representing the Center for Skateboarding and what the future of the sport holds: showing the work and the research that we do here and with our partners like the Smithsonian, and Skate Folk in D.C., and USC. All of it shows how skateboarding helps create communities, improve mental and physical health, promote intergenerational learning, entrepreneurship, and creates a global citizenry at a time when we need more connections and shared history than divisions.

You traveled to Paris recently with the U.S. State Department in anticipation of the Games. What did you do there? 

We were doing lectures, demonstrations and clinics on skateboarding, its mental health benefits, and community building. And I'll be doing similar functions during the Olympics as well. 

How do skateboarders qualify for the Olympics?

Qualifying for skateboarding is similar to other Olympic sports. There's a series of international contests where athletes can earn points with the winners earning the right to compete for their nations. The most recent Olympic qualifier was held in Budapest, Hungary in June.

Luckily for us at SDSU, San Diego is home and hub of a lot of skateboarding and has a really rich skateboarding history. Transworld Skateboarding was founded here, Tony Hawk is from here and a host of skate companies. We have lots of folks on the U.S. Olympic team who are from either Southern California or California as a whole. But there are participants from all over the country.

Regardless of the final outcome, or the country you reside in, the truth is it's a win for all of skateboarding whichever country takes the top spots. We all built skateboarding together, and will continue to show everyone the best that sport can be.

Which skateboarding events will be featured in Paris?

The main disciplines that you're going to see are Men’s and Women’s Park and Street Skateboarding. Skateboarding street includes any bit of the urban environment that you normally see skateboarders use: stairs, handrails, banks or ledges, but reimagined for the purpose of the Games.

Park is a merger of the pool style from the 70s and early 80s, and includes elements of ramp or transition skating — think the U-shaped ramps that made Tony Hawk and others household names. While Tony is most famous for vertical skating or the bigger ramps you see at X Games and other contests, park blends the histories of blasting “airs” out of the ramp — like the aerial maneuvers he does with the style and finesse required to deftly skate a backyard pool. Park gives you a lot of different obstacles within a limited space to skate, but it will always be about speed and style and your ability to express yourself across any obstacle. With skateparks popping up all over the globe, what's fantastic is skaters and our students can learn to skate every style.

Interview lightly edited for length and clarity.