GREATEST EVER<\/p>\n
The 57-year-old, who is widely considered the greatest “vert” skater of all time, said it is too late to be included as a medal sport in Los Angeles but expressed optimism that a strong showing could secure vert skating’s place in future Summer Games.<\/p>\n
“If we show what we do to the Olympic audience, there’s a good chance they would want it for the next Games,” he said.<\/p>\n
Vert skateboarding, which involves aerial tricks on vertical ramps like halfpipes, has been notably absent from the Olympics despite the sport’s inclusion in the 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Games. Only park and street disciplines have been featured.<\/p>\n
“I do feel like it’s a missed opportunity for them because as exciting as park skating is, it’s not what vertical skateboarding is,” Hawk said.<\/p>\n
“It’s high flying, it’s big spins, and it’s the kind of thing that people have gotten used to seeing on the X Games.”<\/p>\n
VERT AMBASSADOR<\/p>\n
Hawk said he offered his portable ramp to organizers for potential use and hopes to serve as “the vert ambassador” for the Los Angeles Games.<\/p>\n
Skateboarding competition at LA 28 is scheduled to take place at Sepulveda Basin, a location Hawk said has historical significance in skating culture dating back to the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Beyond his Olympic advocacy, Hawk has become a sought-after spokesman due to his ability to connect with multiple generations.<\/p>\n
He is a spokesman for Cancerguard and recently participated in a multi-cancer early-detection blood test, motivated by his father’s late-stage lung cancer diagnosis when Hawk was in his early 20s.<\/p>\n
“I never imagined that I’d be an ambassador for anything, especially skateboarding,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It feels like a fun side quest and if I can raise awareness to this type of screening, that’s all the better.”<\/p>\n
(This story has been refiled to say ‘Cancerguard,’ not ‘Cancer Guard,’ in paragraph 11)<\/p>\n
Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus<\/p>\n
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a> Los Angeles-based sports correspondent for Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Tony Hawk is pushing for vertical skateboarding to become an Olympic event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1180,26044,35927,1139,35926,48,52,51,47,50,49,1186,35928,35929,35930,1263,2777,7433,2775,1181,7432],"class_list":["post-58913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-amers","tag-destoukspm","tag-ent","tag-gen","tag-inter","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-namer","tag-oly","tag-sbiz","tag-skae","tag-spo","tag-topcmb","tag-topicworld-us-california","tag-topnws","tag-us","tag-usaca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/resizer\/v2\/https%3A%2F%2Fauthor-service-images-prod-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub%2Freuters%2F036d5cbb-6d49-462f-b907-8a05bf658565.jpg?auth=580ad2fae30471339fb6d78d17885c0f3211aed1183bc608105783be0f9c37e1&height=120&width=120&quality=80&smart=true\")
<\/a><\/p>\n