Sidewalk surfing
Skateboarding began in California in the 1950s, when surfers nailed roller-skate wheels to planks so they had something to ride when the waves were flat. They called it sidewalk surfing, and our surfing page covers the sport it copied. The first wheels were made of metal or clay and threw riders off at the slightest pebble.
In 1972 an American surfer called Frank Nasworthy began selling wheels made of urethane, a tough, grippy plastic. Suddenly boards rolled smoothly and held a corner. Precision BEARINGS followed, and skateboarding took off almost overnight. Modern WHEELS are still urethane, and the metal axles that let the board turn are called TRUCKS.
Not everyone welcomed the craze. Many towns banned skateboards in the 1960s and 1970s after a rush of injuries, and Norway banned them outright from 1978 until 1989, so Norwegian skaters built secret ramps in the woods. A modern DECK is usually made from seven thin layers of maple, glued and pressed into shape, which makes it both springy and strong.
Empty swimming pools
In the mid-1970s a long drought hit California, and many back-garden swimming pools were drained. Skaters sneaked in and rode the smooth, curved walls of the empty pools, climbing higher and higher until they flew out over the edge. This style became known as VERT, short for vertical, and it is why skateparks are full of the BOWL and the HALFPIPE.
It was in pools and bowls that a skater called Alan Gelfand, nicknamed Ollie, worked out how to pop the board into the air without grabbing it, around 1976 to 1978. The trick took his name.
From the ollie to the kickflip
In the early 1980s, a young Florida skater called Rodney Mullen worked out how to do an OLLIE on flat ground, which most people had thought impossible. He then invented a stream of tricks that are now basic skateboarding, including the KICKFLIP and the heelflip. A SHOVE IT, by contrast, is older: the board spins round beneath the feet without flipping over. Nearly every trick in a modern SKATEPARK is built on that same snap of the tail, called the POP.
A NOLLIE is an ollie popped off the nose instead of the tail. To GRIND is to scrape the trucks along a RAIL or ledge; a BOARDSLIDE or TAILSLIDE uses the underside or the back of the DECK instead. A MANUAL is balancing on the back wheels, like a wheelie on a bike. In 1999 Tony Hawk landed the first 900, two and a half full spins in the air, off a RAMP at the X Games.
Goofy, switch and the Olympics
A skater who rides with the right foot forward is GOOFY; left foot forward is called regular. Riding the opposite way to normal is SWITCH, which feels as strange as writing with your other hand. GRIP TAPE, like fine sandpaper, stops the shoes sliding.
Skateboarding made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games, held in 2021, and some of the medallists were barely teenagers. Japan's Momiji Nishiya won the women's street event at thirteen, and Sky Brown, also thirteen, won bronze in the park event to become Great Britain's youngest ever Olympic medallist.