{"id":2445465,"date":"2019-06-18T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T03:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/summit-locals-talk-olympic-skateboarding-at-dew-tour\/"},"modified":"2019-06-18T21:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T03:04:00","slug":"summit-locals-talk-olympic-skateboarding-at-dew-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/summit-locals-talk-olympic-skateboarding-at-dew-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit locals talk Olympic skateboarding at Dew Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Silverthorne resident Red Gerard fields questions at Mountain Dew’s Dew Tour Qualifier Crash Course press conference in Long Beach, California, on Thursday, June 13. Gerard offered a snowboarder’s perspective on skateboarding’s inclusion in the Olympics as the Dew Tour, which took place June 13-16, was the first skateboarding Olympic qualifying event to be held in the U.S.<\/strong>
Screen Shot | Mountain Dew Dew Tour Qualifier Crash Course<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Summit County was well represented at a skateboarding press conference in Long Beach, California, on Thursday, with locals Red Gerard and Jonathan \u201cDC\u201d Oetken fielding questions.<\/p>\n

Oetken moderated the event, and Gerard was called in to offer insight on Olympic snowboarding as the most relatable sport to Olympic skateboarding.<\/p>\n

The event was hosted by Mountain Dew in an effort to give everyone listening an education on skateboarding\u2019s inclusion in the Olympics.<\/p>\n

Several pro skateboarders and industry stakeholders helping usher the sport into the Tokyo Olympics Games answered prepared questions from Oetken before opening it up to the press.<\/p>\n

The industry leaders and professional athletes were there \u201cto help us gain a better understanding around skateboarding\u2019s inaugural Olympic world qualifying process and how it will affect the skateboarding culture,\u201d Oetken said.<\/p>\n

The panel was quick to admit the Olympics has created some nervousness within the skateboarding community, and Gerard talked about how the same apprehension once affected snowboarding. Gerard\u2019s discipline of slopestyle was first introduced to the Olympics in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Olympics brought so many different countries to snowboarding,\u201d Gerard said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s really changed, necessarily. You have the core filming group that still doesn\u2019t really do contests and all that, but I\u2019d say all the contest people are aiming for the Olympics still and are still pretty down with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surfing and climbing, too<\/p>\n

For extreme sports athletes like Gerard, there\u2019s several sports in addition to skateboarding to be excited about in the 2020 Olympics.<\/p>\n

The International Olympic Committee wanted to add something \u201cnew and fresh\u201d to the sport lineup in Tokyo, said IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell, former IOC manager of sport operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Tokyo, we\u2019ve got skateboarding, we\u2019ve got surfing, we\u2019ve got sport climbing, we\u2019ve got BMX freestyle,\u201d McConnell said. \u201cWe went out very deliberately and said \u2018Look, what are the new sports that have the greatest impact with young people?\u2019 And obviously skateboarding was just about at the top of the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerard said he was \u201cbeyond happy\u201d to be at the event and see the athletes begin the qualification process for the Olympics, which was the first qualifier to be held in the U.S. and the first qualifier for the park discipline.<\/p>\n

In addition to park, the street discipline of skateboarding also will be an Olympic sport. The first Olympic qualifier for street was held in London in May.<\/p>\n

The Dew Tour events, as explained by World Skate skateboarding manager Luca Basilico, are 5-star events, meaning \u2014 in tabulating a skateboarder\u2019s world ranking \u2014 the Dew Tour competitions were weighted one tier below the pro tour, which is one tier below the highest level of competition, the World Championships. That\u2019s important to understand, explained USA Skateboarding CEO Josh Friedberg, because it adds a layer of objectivity to skateboarding as an Olympic sport, which \u2014 as a judged sport \u2014 has subjective layers to it.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Skateboarders) are able to compete in the open qualifiers, they\u2019re able to get into these events and earn points, so who you see in Tokyo is totally based on the skaters,\u201d Friedberg said. \u201cThat was a system we thought was totally more fair than having countries name skaters that would compete based on quota spots earned, potentially, by other skaters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In snowboarding, Friedberg\u2019s example can come to pass, as a country which earns four spots in, for instance, Gerard\u2019s discipline of slopestyle, can subjectively name their four athletes if that country doesn\u2019t end up having four snowboarders meet the country\u2019s own objective entry standards during the qualification period, which often takes place after the country\u2019s number of spots are allocated.<\/p>\n

For skateboarding\u2019s Olympic debut, World Skate \u2014 the sport\u2019s governing body \u2014 will first allow the host country one athlete from each gender in each discipline, and next, the top three finishers from the 2020 World Championships will automatically qualify. Finally, World Skate will make sure each continent has at least one athlete represented. Aside from that, the top 20 skateboarders in the world rankings \u2013 with each country allowed a maximum of three athletes from each gender and each discipline \u00ad\u2014 will earn invites to Tokyo 2020 in each discipline of Olympic skateboarding.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Shaun<\/p>\n

While Gerard represented snowboarders on the panel, one snowboarder who was not in attendance could not be ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question we always get is the Shaun White question, because Shaun has made it clear that he wants to compete in the Olympics in skateboarding,\u201d Friedberg said. \u201cAnd the answer has been, \u2018If anyone can do it it\u2019s Shaun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

More realistically, Friedberg added, if anyone can do it, it\u2019s also Ayumu Hirano, a Ski & Snowboard Club Vail alum from Japan who was Shaun White\u2019s main competition in halfpipe snowboarding in 2018. White credits Hirano for pushing him to land his back-to-back 1440 spins to win gold in PyeongChang. Hirano was the silver medalist on that day.<\/p>\n

While White has not yet earned the ranking in park skateboarding to qualify for five-star events like the Dew Tour, Hirano has, and made it through to the quarterfinal round over the weekend in Long Beach, finishing 24th.<\/p>\n

In May, Hirano won the Japanese national championship in park skateboarding, and with Japan guaranteed a spot regardless of world rankings, Hirano\u2019s bid seems in well reach.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile White has \u201ca long, hard road in front of him,\u201d Friedberg said Thursday. \u201cThere is amazing park skateboarders, Shaun\u2019s specialty in skateboarding is vert and it\u2019s not in the Olympics. He has announced that he wants to try and compete (in park); we\u2019re excited to see what he does and I think either way, it\u2019s a great story if he makes it because he is an insane competitor; it\u2019s a great story if he doesn\u2019t because it shows the level of park skateboarding in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silverthorne resident Red Gerard fields questions at Mountain Dew’s Dew Tour Qualifier Crash Course press conference in Long Beach, California, on Thursday, June 13. Gerard offered a snowboarder’s perspective on skateboarding’s inclusion in the Olympics as the Dew Tour, which took place June 13-16, was the first skateboarding Olympic qualifying event to be held in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 22:39:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}