Spend any period of time speaking to those involved with Team GB’s skateboarding setup and the chances are an often repeated phrase will emerge. “Age is just a number” is not a novel mantra. But it has rarely been more apt in a sporting context than for Britain’s skateboarding contingent heading for the Paris Olympics this month.
At one end of the scale is Sky Brown, a teenage veteran who won bronze at the Tokyo Games weeks after her 13th birthday to become Britain’s youngest Olympic medallist. She will be 16 when she looks to upgrade that medal to gold at the Place de la Concorde, the same age as her GB teammate Lola Tambling.
Their compatriot, Andy Macdonald, also has an upcoming birthday, which he plans to celebrate aboard the Eurostar travelling to compete at his debut Olympics: his 51st, making him the oldest skateboarder in the sport’s short Olympic history.
Macdonald is one of skateboarding’s most recognisable names and a self-styled “Rad Dad”. He insists he is not the only one still knocking about on the circuit, but few have been more successful than him and none continue to be in relative old age. Following an illustrious career, it was watching the inaugural Olympic skateboarding competition at the Tokyo Games from afar that made him realise he had one more summit to conquer.
Born and bred in the US, Macdonald took advantage of his father’s Luton heritage to gain a British passport and set about securing qualification for Paris; a goal he achieved in dramatic fashion when he filled the last available spot at the qualification tournament last month to ensure Britain has the widest age range to feature in an Olympic skateboarding team.
With Brown and Tambling still some way off the legal drinking age, the teetotal Macdonald has built a career on his clean-cut image. The father of three has never smoked, nor drunk alcohol, and became the first person to skate through the White House when invited by then President Bill Clinton to deliver an anti-drug talk in 1999.
For a discipline that prides itself on its counterculture status, that lack of rebellion meant Macdonald was not always celebrated by his skateboarding peers. “My whole career was highlighted by the fact that I never drank or smoked,” he said on Monday. “I never partied. People used to call me ‘trainer’, criticise me for skating and training too much, and being a try-hard.
“I was the first skater to have a beverage sponsor and I got hell for being a sellout. Now who are you if you don’t have an energy drink sponsor? It’s the evolution of skateboarding.”
In that sense, Macdonald is the ideal figurehead to lead the sport’s shift towards the corporate realm of governing bodies, boardroom suits and multinational companies that comes with Olympic inclusion. Yet, in a sport which appeals to a youthful demographic, his elder status makes him an outlier. Brown shared the Tokyo podium with competitors aged 19 and 12; Macdonald’s event was won by an 18-year-old. If skateboarding were to implement the 16-year minimum age limit in place for some Olympic sports it would wipe out a significant portion of competitors.
Tambling is yet to sit her GCSEs, but is as unfazed by her meagre years as she is by her teammate edging closer to pension age. “It feels completely normal, really,” says Tambling, who has skated since she was seven.
“Age is literally just a number. It doesn’t matter. Andy’s proven that. I am only young so I do want to still enjoy being a teenager, but I’m good at balancing things and this is way more important than anything else. Skateboarding is the main thing to focus on.”
Brown has already amassed more than 1 million Instagram followers and only narrowly failed in an audacious Olympic double attempt to also qualify in surfing. “That was a little bit of a bummer,” she told the Guardian this year. “But I know I’ve got LA [2028] ahead so I’m going to aim for that and get two gold medals for GB.”
Should she, or any of her teammates, make the podium this time around – and she is a firm gold-medal favourite – celebratory orders will feature more Orangina than champagne.
Macdonald is relishing the unexpected denouement to his career. If stubbornness and personal pride have driven him down this Parisian path, he would love it to resonate for others of a similar age.
“You can do whatever you want,” he says. “For me it’s skateboarding, but for another 50-year-old person it might be riding a bike or lifting weights. Just stay out there doing what you love and don’t age yourself out. Don’t stop.”
He certainly has no plans to. “Some people get up and go to the gym in the morning. That’s the most boring thing in the world to me. I never want to do that. I’d rather skate.”
