For years, skateboarders far and wide have been cracking jokes about Olympic skateboarding. There has been plenty to speculate on between the uniforms, drug tests, and corporate awkwardness. But now that it’s finally here, Olympic skateboarding is even stranger than we might have imagined.
Image above: Hayley Wilson flying the Aussie flag for the women’s street. Photo by Alex Coppel. Words by Nat Kassel.
It was delayed by a year due to COVID; each event will take place in an empty stadium, and 83 per cent of Japanese people apparently don’t want it to happen at all. There are huge photos of Tommy Fynn in every Woolworths in Australia (despite the fact that he didn’t quite crack the top 20), Leticia Bufoni is doing condom ads, and SportsBet has a skateboarding category with live odds. One competitor, Candy Jacobs from The Netherlands, has already tested positive for COVID in Tokyo and is now unable to compete.
Anyway, if you’re thinking about watching on, here’s some info on how to do that.
Shane O’Neill repping the green and gold in the men’s street. Source: Instagram
WHICH AUSSIES MADE IT?
You may remember that 14 Aussie skaters attended the recent qualifiers in Des Moines, Iowa, but the whole park team got disqualified after a few of the Australians tested positive for COVID. That ended some skaters’ Olympic dreams immediately, but as it stands, five Aussies have cracked the top 20 and qualified in their respective events.
Hayley Wilson is competing in women’s street, Shane O’Neill in men’s street, Poppy Olsen in women’s park, and Keegan Palmer and Kieran Woolley in men’s park.
As mentioned previously, SportsBet has live odds on all the skateboarder’s who’ve qualified for the Games. At the time of publishing, Nyjah Huston was the favourite in men’s street, Pamela Rosa in women’s street, Misugu Okamoto in women’s park, and Heimana Reynolds in men’s park. Whether or not you’re into gambling, the SportsBet odds make for some interesting stats on who is likely to dominate each event.
HOW TO WATCH THE OLYMPICS?
The Olympics are being held in Tokyo, which falls into a time zone just one hour earlier than the Eastern States of Australia, so the skateboarding events will be pretty easy for Australians to watch. There are four events – men’s street, women’s street, men’s park, women’s park – and each one falls on a different day. The basic structure is that each event has four heats, starting at 10 in the morning AEDT (9am Tokyo time), then the finals in the early afternoon.
Men’s Street: Sunday, July 25th – heats start at 10am and final starts at 1.25pm AEDT.
Women’s Street: Monday, July 26th – heats start at 10am and final starts at 1.25pm AEDT.
Men’s Park: Wednesday, August 4th – heats start at 10am and final starts at 1.30pm AEDT.
Women’s Park: Thursday, August 5th – heats start at 10am and final starts at 1.30pm AEDT.
Channel Seven is the official Olympic channel, and it’s all free to watch in HD. If you have access to free to air TV, you can watch it there. Otherwise, you can download the 7Plus app on your phone or smart TV and live stream each event.
Otherwise, you could call your local watering hole [if you’re not in lockdown], and ask them if they’ll be screening skateboarding, and then head down with your mates to scream your most yobbo: “Carn, Shaneo! Yeah, Hayls! Smash it, Poppy! Cut sick, Keegos! Woolley Woolley Wooley, oi oi oi!” You get the drift...
