WHY ENGLAND MAY NOT BE IN THE 2020 OLYMPIC SKATEBOARDING EVENT
Courtesy of The Architects’ Journal
We’re two years away from skateboarding’s first appearance in the Olympics, and things are already starting to get messy. The Times is reporting that England may not be able to compete due to a lack of funding.
Skateboarding is coming to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics but whether Great Britain will have a team has been thrown into doubt.
A funding crisis at Skateboard England has left the chief executive with no salary, threatening plans to expand the sport on the back of its elevation to an Olympic event.
England has tens of thousands of regular skateboarders and up to 1,600 skate parks. Sam Beckett, the first skater from the UK to win gold in the Summer X Games in 2016, has ambitions to compete for Team GB in Tokyo.
Skateboarding could attract a youthful crowd but James Hope-Gill, chief executive of Skateboard England, fears that an opportunity could be missed. The organisation had received up to £140,000 in funding from Sport England since its inception in 2015 but backing ended two weeks ago, leaving it without a paid member of staff. Without a governing body, Team GB could have no skateboarders in 2020.
It will be a true travesty if the country that produced greats like Geoff Rowley and Tom Penny will not be represented at the 2020 Tokyo Games. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how all of this plays out.
