I grew up playing more traditional sports like hockey, soccer, and baseball, but skateboarding was another passion I couldn’t get enough of. However, when someone would ask what my favorite sport was, I always felt weird saying “skateboarding.”

To many die-hard skaters, calling skateboarding a “sport” is underrepresenting the lifestyle and community that skateboarding is. It’s an outlet for many that have gotten them through tough times or given them an individual purpose that some people don’t find in team sports.

However, in 2020, skateboarding made its official debut at the pinnacle of sporting competition during the Tokyo Olympics. I read a lot of articles and opinion pieces with mixed emotions about this, split between excitement and complete disagreement with its inclusion. So let’s take a moment to examine why skateboarding counts as a sport and why it deserves a place on the world stage.

Why Skateboarding Counts As A Sport

A sport is “an activity involving prolonged physical exertion and skill in which an individual or a team competes against another or others for entertainment.” Since skateboarding is an individual activity that requires expert skill and physical abilities, with many well-known competitions around the globe, it is, by definition, a sport.

Although many people think of sports as two teams competing against each other to score a goal, it can be more nuanced than that.

Most skaters practice alone or with friends for the simple fun of the activity. However, even at a non-professional level, local skate shops host competitions, or groups of skaters will play games of SKATE. So even though many skaters may never even enter a formal competition, they most likely will make some type of “competition for entertainment” with friends.

So even though skateboarding is generally an individual activity, it brings people together to compete with tricks. Whether at a local level or an Olympic level, the basic purpose of the competition is the same.

Is Skateboarding Considered An Extreme Sport?

The term “extreme” sports was coined in the 1990s by marketing companies to promote the X Games in its early days. This term is often used to cover various activities, from rock climbing, snowboarding, motocross, sky diving, skateboarding, and many more.

Some of the activities people consider “extreme” sports aren’t truly sports in relation to the definition of sport (think of bungee jumping, for example). However, the consensus seems to be that anything offering an “adrenaline rush” due to an element of risk falls within the category of extreme sports.

According to Wikipedia, the exact definition of “extreme sport” is an activity that involves speed, height, a high level of physical exertion, and specialized gear that requires extreme engagement and professionalism. This fits skateboarding into that category perfectly.

Skateboarding tricks are done at speeds, can be done off large features with a high level of consequence, require stamina for long lines of tricks or bowl skating, and requires complete focus and a lot of practice to get right. It checks quite literally every box of what an extreme sport is.

Just because something is an extreme sport doesn’t mean it’s in a different category than regular sports. Skateboarding can still be considered a traditional sport in terms of “competition for entertainment,” but it does require a higher degree of risk than playing a game of soccer, for example.

Ultimately skateboarding sits in both camps as a traditional sport and an extreme sport.

When Did Skateboarding Become An Olympic Sport?

Skateboarding was added as a summer Olympic event in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. However, they were held in 2021 due to Covid. There are two different disciplines for Park (bowl and transition features) and Street (ledges, stairs, and rails.) There are four total Olympic skateboarding events for Men’s Park, Men’s Street, Women’s Park, and Women’s Street.

List Of Popular Skateboarding Competitions

Now that you know that skateboarding is a formal sport, here are a few well-known skateboard competitions to see all the best skaters compete.

– Street League Pro Tour

The Street League Pro Tour (SLS) is an international competition founded in 2010 by Rob Dyrdek, which hosts professional street skaters in a yearly event. This competition sees the best of the best with the largest monetary prize in skateboarding. The first-place winner of SLS wins USD $200,000. A nice chunk of change that anyone would be happy to compete for.

SLS also gives skaters points to get a spot in other competitions, such as the Olympics.

– Skateboarding World Championships

The Skateboarding World Championships hosts Men’s and Women’s street and park skateboarding events. These disciplines are broken up into separate events known as the Vans Park Series World Championship and the SLS Super Crown World Championship.

– X Games

X Games is one of the largest skateboarding events, which is produced and broadcast by ESPN. The first summer X Games was held in 1995, and in each event, skaters competed for bronze, silver, and gold, along with cash prizes for winning their events.

There are several disciplines in the X Games, some of which see the same skaters between different events. The skateboarding events at X Games are:

  • Skateboard Vert
  • Men’s & Women’s Park
  • Men’s & Women’s Street
  • SLS Select Series
  • Skateboard Big Air

– Dew Tour

Dew Tour is a circuit that hosts various extreme sports while traveling around the country. Initially starting as a winter sports competition, Dew Tour added summer sports to the roster, including skateboarding. Now the Dew Tour holds Men’s and Women’s events in both park and street, where skaters compete for medals and cash prizes similar to X Games.

– Summer Olympics

Debuting in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Olympic Skateboarding hosted the best skaters in individual events; however, every skater was grouped into “teams” based on their country. There are Men’s and Women’s events in both park and street to compete for bronze, silver, and gold medals in each discipline.

– Tampa Pro

Tampa Pro is a yearly event reserved for pro skaters only (with a pro model board with an internationally recognized brand). This event is one of the most famous in skateboarding due to the many legendary skaters who have won it over the years. It’s also well known for seeing many non-contest skaters compete in the event.

These are just a few of the most popular skateboarding competitions that are well-known in the sport. However, countless other events are held for beginners and amateurs, both locally and nationally.

So now you can confidently say skateboarding is your favorite sport without feeling weird about it!

Happy Shredding!