Paris 2024: Skateboard Street- Field Report!
Paris 2024: Skateboard Street- Field Report!
Hello and welcome to the first of our missives from Place de la Concorde in central Paris as the clock ticks down to tomorrow’s opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympic Games.
Practice for Skateboard Street is already underway ahead of this weekend’s competition and we thought now would be a good time to give you some short pen-portraits of the teams and individuals getting ready to lay it all on the line this Saturday and Sunday.
Checking in with… Team South Africa!
Representing South Africa in Skateboard Street at Paris 2024 are Johannesburg’s Brandon Valjalo and Boipelo Awuah from the diamond capital of Kimberley.
Neither is a newcomer to the Olympic stage since they both qualified for Tokyo 2020, but some incredibly bad luck curtailed both their endeavours there.
Both Brandon, who broke his wrist immediately prior to the Tokyo Games, and Boipelo- who fractured her pelvis during practice in Japan- are both now fully recovered and determined to put the Republic of South Africa firmly on the skateboarding map.
Having started skating aged just three, Brandon has quickly become an established face on the international skate circuit and a regular on the World Skateboarding Tour.
Boipelo, who intends to become a cardiologist in later life, began by stealing her brother’s skateboard aged five.
By sixteen she was South Africa’s female champion and a figurehead of the burgeoning women’s scene there.
Combined, they have brought a terrific upful energy to Paris which has demonstrated that skateboarding flourishes everywhere that restless youth and flat ground combine.
We would also like to extend our condolences here to the South African skateboarding community on the recent passing of our shared friend Damian Bramley.
May his soul rest in peace.
Checking in with… Team France
Eclecticism is a most French trait, and nowhere is that more reflected in Skateboard Street’s domestic representation at Paris 2024.
In the first instance, we have 14-year-old Lucie Schoonheere from the Bordeaux region, who joined the World Skateboarding Tour early in 2023 with a view to giving her some big event experience which would hold her in good stead for LA28.
Instead, she shot up the rankings thanks to a remarkable 10th place at WST Lausanne last September, which she then followed with a 12th at WST Dubai and finds herself at destiny’s doorstep four years earlier than Team France originally anticipated.
Accompanying her is Le Havre’s internet sensation Joseph Garbaccio, who has landed himself a deal as the skateboarding face of French sporting goods behemoth Decathlon as part of his unscripted surge for Paris glory.
Better known internationally is the charming and well-liked Vincent Milou from the French Basque country, a thoroughbred street skater who was encouraged to use his consistency and clean style to try out contest skating and rapidly became a favourite of the crowds and fellow skaters alike on the World Skateboarding Tour.
Leading the French charge is Lyon’s Aurelien Giraud, the 2022 World Champion and one of the fastest and hardest-working skateboarders of his golden generation.
Whether home-court advantage or the pressures of an expectant host nation prove to be decisive for Team France this weekend remains to be seen, but to have four Olympians in contention at this point is, in itself, a triumph for Les Bleus!
Meet Vareeraya Suskasem!
Away from the headline-grabbing narratives at the top of the leaderboard, the Olympics also has its ‘Rocky’ stories developing away from the limelight.
None more so than 12-year-old Thai girl Vareeraya Suskasem, who has had one of the most remarkable stories you might suggest of this entire Olympics.
Having started skateboarding at her mother’s behest aged 6, Vareeraya’s nascent skate career has been hampered up to now by the not-uncommon recurrence of injuries on a growing body.
Under the expert tutelage of famed international former professional Kenny Reed, she only joined the World Skateboarding Tour last December, thrown in at the metaphorical deep-end of the Tokyo World Championships.
Having done commendably if not exceptionally both there and at the subsequent WST Dubai stop, she entered the Olympic Qualifer Series through IOC continental representation rules and again performed admirably at OQS Shanghai without progressing further than the first cut.
And then, and then: with the last roll of the dice at OQS Budapest last month, she produced the performance of her short life so far, finishing in 12th and making the cut for Paris.
Admitting that she screamed when she found out she had made it, the plucky youngster from a sport mad nation has an ambition all of her own at these Games- to get a good look at the Eiffel Tower!
World Skate Press Release
https://moresport.tv/category/roller-sport/video-roller-sport/
