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Briefly:
A nine-member Australian skateboard workforce, with opponents ranging in age from 14 to 34, has been introduced for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
It is the the fourth-largest Olympic skateboard workforce behind the US, Brazil and Japan — whereas additionally together with the youngest Olympian on the Australian workforce.
What’s subsequent?
The elite skate boarders will quickly head to Paris, the place the town’s famed Place de La Concorde shall be remodeled into an city sports activities park.
As a nine-year-old, Olivia “Liv” Lovelace was trying to land tips on her board surrounded by boys at a Sydney skate park.
“Once I first began skateboarding, if I noticed one woman, I would be so hyped,” she mentioned.
Now, the 20-year-old is on the Australian Olympic workforce.
She is one among 9 skate boarders introduced at the moment who will don the inexperienced and gold to compete in Paris on the finish of this month.
Within the Park occasion, Keegan Palmer — reigning Olympic champion — and Kieran Woolley return for his or her second Video games, whereas 14-year-old Arisa Trew and 15-year-old Ruby Trew (not associated) each make their Olympic debut.
Park competitions happen on a course consisting of a hollowed-out concrete bowl, with a number of completely different parts together with ramps, quarter pipes, and bumps.
Thirty-four-year-old Shane O’Neill returns for his second Olympic look within the Avenue occasion, alongside Olympic debutants Chloe Covell, Haylie Powell, Keefer Wilson and Lovelace.
The Avenue occasion focuses extra on utilizing an city atmosphere as a playground to do tips on obstacles like stairs, ledges, curbs and handrails.
It is simply the second time skateboarding shall be featured on the Olympic Video games – with Paris’s famed public sq. Place de La Concorde to be remodeled into an city sports activities park.
“It is bizarre to consider … that is so cool as a result of I did not develop up within the technology the place skateboarding was within the Olympics,” Lovelace mentioned.
“I have been skateboarding for over half my life and it is simply the factor I like to do.
“You have to adore it to skate — you hit the concrete and get very harm so it’s a must to have the eagerness to stick with it.”
That is the second time Lovelace has tried to qualify for the Olympics, after she broke her arm within the marketing campaign for Tokyo 2020 — an damage that wanted three surgical procedures and a seven-month lay-off from the game.
Lovelace mentioned she hopes the publicity across the Olympics conjures up extra ladies to strive the game.
“Skateboarding has been male-dominated for a really very long time,” she mentioned.
“And now generally I’m going right down to my native and there is extra ladies than boys, which is de facto cool.”
Australia will discipline the fourth-largest skateboard workforce heading to Paris behind the US, Brazil and Japan — whereas additionally together with the youngest Olympian on the Australian workforce.
Gold Coaster Arisa Trew shall be 14 years and 86 days when she competes in Paris — making her the seventh-youngest to symbolize the nation in Olympics historical past, and the youngest in 40 years since swimmer Dimity Douglas competed within the 1984 video games in Los Angeles, aged 14 years and 27 days.
Ian Johnston is Australia’s youngest-ever competitor, having coxed the boys’s pair on the 1960 Video games in Rome aged 13 years and 74 days.
Australia’s Olympic skateboarding workforce enters Paris with a wealth of worldwide success, together with Arisa Trew and Keegan Palmer each successful the Olympic Qualifying Collection in June, and 14-year-old Covell being a 2023 World Championship silver medallist.
Fellow Gold Coaster Covell is just a few months youthful than Arisa Trew, and each are vying to interrupt a 68-year-old report to grow to be the nation’s youngest Olympic medallists.
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