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The Olympics has integrated a once-rebellious sport recognized for iconoclasts, free spirits and free wheelers into its extra disciplined qualification and competitors pathway.
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“However there may be nonetheless fairly a little bit of freedom in our sport,” mentioned skateboarder Shay Sandiford of Courtenay.
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Boarders Sandiford, Samantha Secours and Adam Hopkins from the Canadian nationwide staff are in Higher Victoria this week to check out the a number of bowls within the area, together with at Vic West and Topaz parks and on the West Shore.
Canada Skateboard is exploring choices for a nationwide dwelling base and nationwide staff camps and likewise toured PISE and is being hosted this week by 94 Ahead, the legacy fund from the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Video games.
A number of nationwide sporting organizations similar to Rowing Canada, Rugby Canada and Triathlon Canada are headquartered on the Island with others similar to Athletics Canada, Biking Canada and Golf Canada having parts of their nationwide packages situated right here.
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“It’s the multi-sport presence, and the general built-in assist buildings, that makes Victoria so enticing,” mentioned Higgins.
The last word vacation spot is the 2024 Olympics venue, Place de La Concorde within the coronary heart of Paris, subsequent summer time after skateboarding made its debut on the final Olympics in Tokyo.
“We’re working onerous on qualifying our athletes for the Olympic Video games in Paris,” mentioned Canadian staff head coach Sean Hayes, who will even information the athletes this fall on the 2023 Pan Am Video games in Santiago, Chile.
Secours, nonetheless, mentioned skate boarders can toggle between the button-downed qualification/competitors mode and the pure-joy-of-boarding feeling that introduced them to the game within the first place.
“You’ll be able to go from coaching to just-hanging-out boarding fairly simply,” mentioned the 21-year-old from Montreal.
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“We are able to’t lose that from our sport.”
Thunder Bay’s Hopkins, additionally certain for the Pan Am Video games in Santiago with Secours, mentioned: “There aren’t any borders and no boundaries in skateboarding. Skate boarders are one large household wherever you go and no matter language you converse.”
That ethic was on show, with the exhibits of solidarity by all of the Olympic boarders competing in Tokyo to even lowly also-rans, a lot commented on.
“There’s positively been a spike in media consideration, and we’ve seen much more folks shopping for skateboards, for the reason that Tokyo Olympics,” mentioned Canada Skateboard high-performance director Adam Higgins.
Additionally, counterintuitively, whereas most sports activities suffered as a result of pandemic, skateboarding discovered progress.
“It’s such a person sport that you might simply exit to a car parking zone by your self throughout the pandemic,” mentioned Sandiford, the G.P. Vanier Secondary graduate, who discovered a lot of his strikes on a plywood ramp constructed by his dad within the yard of the household dwelling in Courtenay.
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