Skate at Mount Olympus

Abstract

We are about to witness the entry of action and adventure sports at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, with Sports Climbing, Skate Street, Skate Park, BMX Park and Surfing, thanks to the desire of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to rejuvenate its audience and give new impetus to the interest of the new generations by the Olympic Games. But why has the IOC been waiting for this moment in history to include sports once considered marginal, although today fully consolidated, in the program of the summer Olympic Games? Guided by this question, the article has as its object the Brazilian and international skateboarding community and aims to analyze the inclusion of skateboarding in the Olympic program prior to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The project also intends to understand the importance of skateboarding as a field of physical activity to promote leisure and to present, from the inclusion of this sport in the Olympic Games, the practice of this modality based on the positive aspects of Olympism. As methodological procedures, a bibliographical and documentary review on skateboarding was carried out as a sport, organization and lifestyle, as well as semi structured interviews with athletes and leaders of the sport. Through the analysis of the information obtained through the bibliographical survey and the interviews undertaken, it can be said that the inclusion of skateboarding in the Olympic program has great possibilities not only to rejuvenate its audience, but also to reaffirm Olympic values.