Charlotte Ives has spent hours at the skate park four or five days a week trying to land a 50-50 – “which is when you go up the ramp and both your trucks are on it,” she explains. (A truck is the metal T-shaped part that mounts to the underside of the board and has the wheels on it.)
“It is a really simple trick, I think it is basic for most people, but it took me, like, four months to land it,” the 14-year-old tells Guardian Australia. She started skateboarding in January after seeing videos of people doing tricks online.
“Everything is scary at first,” she says, but it only makes the feeling of landing a trick that much better.
“I can’t describe the feeling, it is such a relief,” she says. “And people will see you trying to land it, and they are so supportive.”
More girls have been getting into skateboarding since it debuted in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Ives’ coach, Aidan Johnson, from PoP! Skate School in Sydney, says. And just a day after 14-year-old Arisa Trew won gold in this year’s Olympic park skateboarding event, he is already seeing interest grow.
“Today I have had at least three texts come in from completely new clients referencing the Olympics, saying, ‘We saw the heats and my daughter is interested in skateboarding.’”
When Johnson started coaching five years ago, about 10% to 15% of skaters were girls. Now, he says, girls make up about 30% to 35% of the school’s cohort.
“I definitely saw after [the Tokyo] Olympics, a really big uptick in especially young girls around the ages of six to 12.”
And at Chiggy’s Skateboarding on the Sunshine Coast, owner Mat Chigwidden has seen at least a 50% increase in girls skateboarding. When he started 25 years ago, he only knew two girls in the sport.
“Now there are literally girls skating everywhere,” he says, adding that his new girls-only classes are the first to book out.
Johnson thinks the interest is thanks to Olympians like Trew, 14-year-old Chloe Covell and 18-year-old Haylie Powell helping other girls realise skateboarding is for everyone.
“These young girls are getting to see people who might be close in age to themselves, from the same country, going out and doing these really cool-looking tricks and showing that anybody can get involved,” Johnson says.
“It’s not something that is in the mainstream media quite often.”
Frankie Flanagan, 11, thinks Trew is “so cool”. She has been learning to skate since she was nine, and is particularly taken by Trew who made history after she “spun in the air” last year.
“By the time I’m 14, I’m hoping I’ll be sort of at least a bit like her.”
In his lessons today, Trew was the “hot topic,” Chigwidden says. Two years ago, he held a competition on the Sunshine Coast that Trew competed in – and won.
“She has gone from strength to strength,” he says. “To see her win our little contest in our home town a couple of years ago, when she just started out, to winning a gold medal on the world stage, was very impressive.”
“It’s going to be inspiring for these young girls to see that she just started out, like they all have as well.”
Ives says watching young girls compete in the Olympics is encouraging because “even if they are not winning, they still have a positive attitude and they support their teammates”.
“When you see someone at the skate park, and they can do something you can’t do, it is very inspiring to think ‘maybe I should try that’.”
Flanagan agrees.
“You will fall sometimes, but at the end, it’s awesome when you get to the point where you can do it without help or without getting scared.”
