skateboarding, form of recreation and sport, popular among youths, in which a person rides standing balanced on a small board 🤑 mounted on wheels.
Considered one of the so-called extreme sports, skateboarding as a professional sport boasts a range of competitions, including 🤑 vertical and street-style events.
Vertical skating (also called "vert") features aerial acrobatics performed in half-pipes that were originally built to emulate 🤑 empty swimming pools.
Street style features tricks performed in a real or simulated urban environment with stairs, rails, ledges, and other 🤑 obstacles.
Skateboarding has developed as a youth subculture that emphasizes creativity and individuality.
It is an alternative to mainstream team sports, which 🤑 are more formally organized and largely controlled by adults.
(Read Britannica's biography of Tony Hawk.)
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The first commercial skateboards 🤑 appeared in 1959, but crude homemade versions of skateboards, often consisting of nothing more than old roller-skate wheels attached to 🤑 a board, were first built after the turn of the 20th century.
In the early 1960s, skateboard manufacturers such as Makaha 🤑 and Hobie attempted to capitalize on the rising popularity of surfing by promoting skateboarding, then known as "sidewalk surfing," as 🤑 an alternative diversion when no rideable waves were available.
In 1963 Makaha formed the first professional skateboard team, and that same 🤑 year the first skateboard competition was held in Hermosa, California.
It included events in freestyle and downhill slalom skateboarding.
The initial popularity 🤑 of skateboarding waned over the next couple of years because of the limitations of the skateboard's maneuverability and because of 🤑 warnings from safety professionals that the activity was dangerous.
Skateboards were revived in the mid-1970s after the development of the faster 🤑 and more-maneuverable polyurethane wheel and the introduction of the kicktail, the raised back end of the board that makes kickturns 🤑 possible.
The craze spread worldwide, and skateboard magazines helped promote both the sport and young innovative riders such as Tony Alva 🤑 and Stacey Peralta.
The first skate park was built in Florida in 1976, and many others began to appear throughout North 🤑 and South America, Europe, and Asia, all providing a variety of slopes and banked surfaces for sudden turns and stunts.
It 🤑 was at this time that riders started skating in empty pools and exploring the "vertical" potential of the sport.
The empty 🤑 pools soon gave way to half-pipes, U-shaped riding surfaces used to perform aerial stunts.
Though protective gear such as helmets and 🤑 knee pads was commonplace, safety concerns and escalating insurance premiums for skate parks played a major role in the sport's 🤑 second fall from widespread popularity.
In the 1980s skateboarding enjoyed an underground following.
Skateboarders built their own ramps and half-pipes and began 🤑 skating the urban environments, creating what became known as street style.
Increased board size and improved truck constructions helped the new 🤑 style thrive.
It was during this time that a distinctive youth subculture began to develop around the sport.
Punk rock and baggy 🤑 clothes became closely associated with young skaters.
The daring and individualistic nature of street and vert skateboarding was spread through straight-to-video 🤑 documentary films that found a large youth audience.
The videos made stars of vert skaters Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero and 🤑 street skaters Natas Kaupas and Mark Gonzalez, among many others.
But it was the advent of large competitions, such as the 🤑 X Games, an alternative sports festival sponsored by the cable television network ESPN and first held in 1995, that gave 🤑 the sport mainstream exposure and a certain commercial legitimacy.
Skateboarding has established itself as a professional sport while still maintaining its 🤑 independence from traditional team sports.
Snowboarding and in-line roller-skating have been heavily influenced by skateboarding techniques and culture.
Most skateboards are about 🤑 32 inches (81 cm) long and 9 inches (23 cm) wide.
A skateboard comprises three major parts: the deck (the board 🤑 upon which the rider stands), the trucks (the construction that attaches the wheels to the deck), and the wheels.
Originally, decks 🤑 were made of wood, but later they were also made of aluminum, fibreglass, and plastic.
The rear part of the deck 🤑 is bent upward to form the kicktail, as is the front ("nose") on modern designs.
The truck includes an axle, a 🤑 hangar (which houses the axle), and a cushion that both absorbs shocks and provides flexibility for steering.
The wheels are made 🤑 of tough polyurethane plastic.
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There are variations of the skateboard, 🤑 most notably the longboard, which can run from 38 to 60 inches (96.5 to 152.5 cm) in length.
The sport of 🤑 street luge began with the use of longboards, ridden in a prone position down a steep hill.
The street luge vehicles 🤑 are still essentially skateboards but are up to 8.5 feet (2.
6 metres) long and have supports for the head and 🤑 feet.
They can reach speeds of 80 miles (130 km) per hour.
Other modifications to the skateboard include sails for wind-aided riding 🤑 and blades for skating on ice.
Much of the excitement of skateboarding rests in the riders' creativity.
Skaters compete to invent new 🤑 tricks or new combinations of tricks.
Three of the most fundamental skateboarding moves are the kickturn, the ollie, and the grind.
A 🤑 kickturn is accomplished when the rider pushes down on the kicktail, lifting the front wheels off the ground and spinning 🤑 on the rear wheels.
The hands-free aerial known as the ollie is one of the most important tricks in contemporary skateboarding.
It 🤑 was invented in 1978 by Alan ("Ollie") Gelfand, who discovered that slamming his foot down on the kicktail and simultaneously 🤑 sliding his front foot forward caused the board and himself to jump into the air together.
A grind involves riding with 🤑 the trucks against the edge or top of an object.
World Cup Skateboarding, founded in 1994, oversees the biggest street and 🤑 vert skateboarding competitions, including events in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States and throughout Europe and Asia.
