Skateboarding is an action sport that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation. Originating in the United States, skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2009 report found that the skateboarding market is worth an estimated $4.8 billion in annual revenue, with 11.08 million active skateboarders in the world. In 2016, it was announced that skateboarding would be represented at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, for both male and female teams. Skateboarding made its Olympic debut in 2020 and was included in the 2024 games.
The kickflip is a skateboarding trick, in which the rider flips their skateboard 360° along the axis that extends from the nose to the tail of the deck. When the rider is regular footed the board spins clockwise if viewed from the front.
Anthony Frank Hawk, nicknamed Birdman, is an American former professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first documented "900" skateboarding trick in 1999. He also licensed a skateboarding video game series named after him, published by Activision that same year. Hawk retired from competing professionally in 2003 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential skateboarders of all time.
Steve Caballero is an American professional skateboarder. He is known for the difficult tricks and air variations he invented for vertical skating and for setting the long-standing record for the highest air achieved on a halfpipe. In 1999, Thrasher Magazine named Caballero the "Skater of the Century".
John Rodney Mullen is an American professional skateboarder who practices freestyle skateboarding and street skateboarding. He is considered one of the most influential skateboarders of all time. Mullen is credited for inventing numerous tricks, including the flatground ollie, kickflip, heelflip, impossible, and 360-kickflip. As a result, he has been called the "Godfather of freestyle skating."
Longboarding is a variation of skateboarding typified by the use of longer boards ("decks") with longer wheelbases and softer wheels. While longboards vary widely in shape and size, compared to street skateboards longboards are designed to be more stable at speed and to have more traction due to larger wheel sizes and softer wheel durometers. While standard street skateboards may typically be between 28 and 34 inches long, longboards can range anywhere from 32 to 50 inches in length. Ride characteristics of longboards generally differ from that of street skateboards due to the use of specialized longboard trucks that have different properties than those typically used with skateboards; while street skateboards use "traditional kingpin" (TKP) trucks that are optimized for tight turning radii, ollie and flip tricks, slides, grinds, and transition skating, longboards are typically paired with "reverse kingpin" (RKP) trucks that are designed for increased stability at higher speeds, more "surfy" carving characteristics, and/or greater ride comfort for commuting over longer distances.
Powell Peralta is an American skateboard company founded by George Powell and Stacy Peralta in 1978. The company rose to prominence in the 1980s as skateboarding began maturing as a sport. The company featured the Bones Brigade, a team featuring the era's top competitors. Peralta left the company in 1991 and Powell continued to produce skateboard equipment as Powell, Bones Bearings and RollerBones. The two company founders reunited to produce the company's now classic inventory under the name Powell Classic.
Stacy Douglas Peralta is an American film director and entrepreneur. He was previously a professional skateboarder and surfer with the Zephyr Competition Team, also known as the Z-Boys, from Venice, California.
Tony Alva is an American skateboarder, entrepreneur, and musician. He was a pioneer of vertical skateboarding and one of the original members of the Zephyr Competition Skateboarding Team, also known as the Z-Boys. The Transworld Skateboarding Magazine ranked him eighth in its list of the "30 Most Influential skateboarders" of all time.
The ollie is a skateboarding trick where the rider and board leap into the air without the use of the rider's hands. It is the combination of stomping the tail of the skateboard off the ground to get the board mostly vertical, jumping, and sliding the front foot forward to level out the skateboard at the peak of the jump.
Charles Michael "Bucky" Lasek is an American professional skateboarder and rallycross driver.
The Bones Brigade Video Show is a 1984 skateboarding video, produced by Stacy Peralta and Craig Stecyk.
Ray Barbee is an American skateboarder and musician from San Jose, California.
Robert Lance Mountain is an American professional skateboarder and artist who was one of the prominent skateboarders throughout the 1980s, primarily due to his involvement with the Bones Brigade. As of August 2017, Mountain continues to skate professionally and his sponsors include Flip, Nike SB, Indy, Spitfire, and Bones Bearings.
Mike McGill is an American skateboarder who is best known for inventing the trick "McTwist", an inverted 540 degree mute grab aerial.
Per Nils Welinder is a Swedish entrepreneur and former professional skateboarder. During the 1980s he achieved international fame as a freestyle skater and was a leading member of the Powell-Peralta skate team known as the "Bones Brigade". He had a number of influential video parts with Powell during the 1980s, a series of signature models, and roles in several Hollywood movies. Welinder also has the unique distinction of being the only person to have ever beaten Rodney Mullen in a professional skate contest.
The Search for Animal Chin is a 1987 skateboarding film featuring the Bones Brigade. It is one of the first skateboarding films to have a plot, rather than simply a collection of skateboarding stunts and music videos.
A skate video is a movie of or about skateboarding typically showing new tricks and a series of skateboarders in a montage set to music.
Skate Rider was a quarterly skateboarding magazine of the 1970s which originated out of Cocoa Beach, Florida, published by Gunnar and John Griffin who had launched Wave Rider magazine several years earlier. Skate Rider was founded in 1976 and lasted until 1980 when the popularity of skateboarding began to plummet.
Reginald "Reggie" Barnes Jr. is a retired American professional freestyle skateboarder and the founder/CEO of Eastern Skateboard Supply, the largest skateboard wholesale company in North America. Known as a "virtuoso" teen amateur, Barnes skated professionally from 1980 to 1991, with the Pepsi-Cola Pro Skateboard Team, Walker Skateboards, and Dogtown Skateboards. By 1986, Barnes was one of the top five American freestyle skaters in the United States and was a featured demonstrator at Expo 86, the world's fair held in Vancouver, Canada. He placed third in freestyle at the World Cup in 1987.
