Alexis Sablone Will Appear On HBO’s ‘Real Sports’ Tonight
WBATB‘s Alexis Sablone has been on a full-scale mainstream media blitz this year, and her latest interview is poised to hit a prized demographic: non-skating premium-cable sports aficionados. In HBO’s Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, sportscaster—and former tennis pro—Mary Carillo picks Sablone’s brain about how she approaches street skating, her outlook for the upcoming Olympics, and much more.
Sablone is kind of the perfect person to be front and center, representing skateboarding for the masses. By now everyone knows that she’s an MIT grad, which in itself probably doesn’t hold much sway among skaters but it does have a huge impact with journalists and reporters. When the 800-pound gorilla is mentioned in the interview (Is skateboarding a sport?), Sablone sets the record straight and puts her foot down with the authority of her famous kickflips:
“There is this ‘sportification’ of skateboarding happening, but skateboarding itself is not a sport.”
Side note: It’s kinda funny that when Sablone appears in mainstream content like this she’s always introduced as “MIT graduate Alexis Sablone,” but within skate circles it’s usually “PJ Ladd’s Wonderful Horrible Life‘s Alexis Sablone”. Some milestones just hit different. Watch the full segment tonight on HBO.
Sablone was in the Finals for the inaugural Women’s Battle At The Berrics last year. Watch the journey to her championship match, against Monica Torres, below:
