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REUTERS/Marton Monus Olympic Qualifier Series 2024 Budapest – Skateboarding – Budapest, Hungary – June 23, 2024 Japan’s Miyu Ito in action during the women’s park final
Jiji Press
16:52 JST, July 14, 2024
Tokyo (Jiji Press)—Japan’s skateboarding scene has evolved dramatically since Tokyo hosted the Olympic Games in 2021, enjoying improvements in the public perception of the sport and training environments.
“People who know about skateboarding has increased,” Yuto Horigome, the gold medalist in the men’s street event at the Tokyo Games, said. “Japan has become a country that attracts global attention.”
Although Japan has many top-tier skateboarders, the public’s view of skateboarding previously tended to be negative due partly to the impression left by people skateboarding on public places. But this changed after the Tokyo Games, when skateboarding made its Olympic debut.
“In the past, news reports (on skateboarding) meant something bad. Now, it’s in a positive direction,” said an official at sports equipment maker Murasaki Sports Co., which has long supported skateboarding.
Images of athletes cheering each other up after defeats at the Tokyo Games struck a chord with Japanese audiences.
In 2022, the U.S.-born action sports tournament X Games was held for the first time in Japan, drawing a crowd of 40,000 people over three days. Following this, Japan was selected for the first time to host the Street League Skateboarding, a world-class competition series, and the Street World Championship last year.
U.S. skateboarding star Nyjah Huston said that the Japanese skateboarding scene has expanded rapidly, likely because the country hosted the Olympics.
New skateboarding parks are being built around Japan following the Olympics. Murasaki Sports opened an air-conditioned indoor park in Tachikawa, Tokyo, last summer, and a large facility was opened inside the LaLaport shopping mall in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, in spring this year.
Top Japanese skateboarders visit both facilities for practice, allowing many ordinary skateboarders to witness their skills up close.
Regarding the growing number of skateboarders, Takashi Nishikawa, head coach of the Japanese national team, said that “many communities have been increasingly eager to turn out Olympic athletes in the past three years.”
Of the 10 Japanese athletes selected for the Paris Olympic Games from later this month, only one is from Tokyo. Liz Akama and Hinano Kusaki, who will both make their Olympic debuts in Paris, have trained in their respective local skateboarding parks to become top-class athletes.
If Japanese skateboarders win many medals in Paris as they did in Tokyo, the sport will likely gain further prominence among children across the country.
