How to build an Olympic Skatepark - What does the Australian Olympic Skateboarding Team need?

With the X-Games just finished down in Sydney, It’s got me all excited for the Olympics. The level of skateboarding and the entertainment the X-Games brings is undeniable.

I can’t wait to watch Shane O’Neil casually land trick after trick in the most elegant display of crazy hard skateboarding. It makes me think, what will the training for the Olympics look like? What do the Athletes need?

As someone obsessed with surfing and the Championship Tour, it’s easy to see the sort of support Athletes at this level in an extreme sport might need. Surfing has well embraced changes in coaching methods and performance aids. Where tour surfers once believed ‘surfing is the best workout for surfing’ they now understand that you need to support the other muscles in the body to help prevent overstrain and injury. Surfers train in gyms, have a solid stretching routine, focus on eating well and also embrace the mental game. Learning to switch on and off quickly to preserve energy and focus for when it matters as well as learning to deal with wins and losses.

So Skateboarding could definitely follow a similar path. With so many cross overs between the two types of sport it makes sense to focus on similar performance strategies. I’ve recently been really focusing on pre and post skate stretching routines, predominantly using a foam roller on the leg muscles. I’ve noticed I feel much fresher, when I skate now, I need less of a warm up and pop seems to come much easier. I feel less ‘heavy’ than I used to.

Neen Williams has been a huge inspiration for bringing stretching into skateboarding. Check out his video below (he has heaps more so I recommend checking out his full YouTube channel).

What about a training facility? Will there be an Olympic skatepark to train at? What is the best park to practice in?

From what I’ve heard (please correct me if I’m wrong here as I probably am!) the Olympic park will be built by California Skateparks. They have also got ahead and been the first people to build a training facility purely for skateboarding.

‘The CA TF is the world’s first and only high performance center developed explicitly for skateboarding, featuring both a full-size concrete competition Street Course and Park Course. Designed and built by California Skateparks, the courses feel like a real contest environment featuring elements common to competition courses including time clocks, judging stands and spectator viewing. The world class skateboard courses will be complimented with an athlete lounge that includes, locker rooms, showers, and a multimedia lounge.’ – (From the CA TF Website)

Want to take a look around? Manny Santiago is here to help:

So what about other countries? It’s easy to have seen the US being ahead with the Olympics training and throwing plenty of money towards it but what about the other countries.

Well this video from Manny Santiago of the China Olympic Team Facility looks like a pretty good take! Have a watch below.

Looks fun. I’d love to go there.

The UK has a number of indoor skateparks but a recently opened one in Greystone has caught my attention as potentially their aim for a Training Facitlity.

‘Greystone Action Sports Academy’ - Read more about them here.

Australia seems maybe a bit further behind, they’re still working on putting together the Governing body, and it probably doesn’t help that 2 of the top hopefuls in Shane O’Neill and Tommy Fynn spend most of their time living in the states. There is the Skate All Day facility on the Gold Coast of Australia which from what I can see is the only park working to be a ‘training facility’. Be great to see what else develops for Aus over the next year.

I’ll add to this post if I see more parks and training facilities pop up. For now The US seems to be doing pretty well and America also has Camp Woodward in multiple versions spread around the country, which seems like a pretty great place for up and comping skateboarding Olympic athletes to train and develop.

I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the rest of the world with skateboarding and preparation for the Olympics.