When was skateboarding first started

It includes skaters of many skin colors and nationalities, and there are many more girls skating today. Terry Kennedy, an African American who goes by the name T. Kennedy grew up in Compton; a neighborhood in California with a lot of violence and gang activity. But his hard work and courage paid off. Origins Jump to Section. Skateboarding is a relatively young sport when compared to other sports such as football or basketball , but its history still runs deep.

Skateboarding was first founded in when the first-ever competition was held in Hermosa beach. It became so popular that over 50 million boards were sold in that same year.

Although it was emerging in popularity, in , just 3 years after the first skateboarding competition, sales began to drop because people were concerned about their children's safety. Nobody really wore any helmets, and the wheels were made out of clay and metal, so they skidded easily. However, in , Frank Nasworthy, a young surfer at the time, created the wheels skaters currently use to this day, which allows for better grip. This allowed people to skate in more areas such as swimming pools, which they began doing in in order to preserve water because of the drought that was hitting California.

This was when the aerial was born. Santa Monica skater, Tony Alva, discovered that you could ride up the side of the pool and do a degree flip in the air while coming back down in the opposite direction. Then in , Alan Gelfand created the ollie: a trick where he jumped with his board. This revolutionized the way people skated because it is the foundation of most of the complicated flip tricks people see today.

In the s, new board shapes were developed, so skaters can overcome different obstacles. The X-Games were then founded in , and it began the era of televising skateboarding.

Street skateboarding also became very popular at this time. Complete Longboards. Longboard Hardware Longboard Wheels. Longboard Trucks. Longboard Bearings. Longboard Wheels. Protection Slide Gloves. Pad Sets. Slide Gloves. By Type Adult Roller Skates. Kids Roller Skates. All Roller Skates. Adult Roller Skates. By Brand Rio Roller Skates. Rookie Roller Skates. Impala Roller Skates. Moxi Roller Skates. Chaya Roller Skates.

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Boys Heelys. Girls Heelys. All Heelys. While we do our best to answer this question again here, we take our first push into a larger world. A world defined by the ultimate expression of freedom, movement, and an intimate look at the history of skateboarding. All Downhill From Here. The origin of the skateboard is as ambiguous as the origin of our Universe. There are multiple reports from self-proclaimed skate-historians of who, what and where the first skateboards appeared.

It is largely agreed upon that skateboards originated in the United States, first as crates of wood with roller derby skates attached to the underfoot. The earliest models had handlebars attached, like modern scooters but eventually the boxes were replaced by wooden planks and the handlebars scrapped for an experience more akin to surfing.

Before commercial skateboards began appearing in , the only way you could skate was by making your own board.

These home-made skateboards would seed the DIY mentality ingrained in skateboarding today. In a raw and beautiful way, skateboarding began not from an industry but from the intense desire for one's own self expression. To understand this simple yet profound truth is our first glimpse into "what is skateboarding" and ultimately, what it means to be a skateboarder. It would be even more difficult to imagine how much skateboarding would change since its conception.

By , Makaha formed the first professional skateboarding team competing in the first ever skateboard competition later that year in Hermosa, California. While the remnants of early s downhill skateboarding competitions take the form of death defying San Francisco hill-bombs, the freestyle competition formats and most tricks performed at the Hermosa competition are now but a distant memory to contemporary skateboarding. Even with its novelty in American sports, skateboarding popularity ultimately crashed by