Skateboarding is often not recognized as a sport but instead, a hobby. Skateboarding is an olympic sport as of recently in 2020. Three years later, a lot of people continue to see it as a hobby, but is it just that? When it comes to skating, there are people that take it very seriously and challenge themselves to get better to the best of their abilities. There are also people who don’t take it as seriously and just do it for recreational purposes. There is lots of competition in skating but it seems to be a close community. At the skatepark, everyone seems to get along and usually have something in common. The same could be said for basketball.
However, a lot of skaters give the sport a bad reputation by engaging in illegal activities. Trespassing and smoking are usually the most common, making a lot of people not want to acknowledge skateboarding at all. It could also damage places that are skateable such as taking chunks out of curbs. Luckily, there are parks specifically designed for skateboarding that last much longer. There are four main types of skateboarding; vert, street, freestyle, and park. Skateboarding is unique as a sport as well because you have to put a lot of time into becoming better. Style matters a lot in skateboarding which usually only applies as a bonus to other sports. If the skater does difficult tricks but they don’t have much style, they are still respected but have less of a chance to get noticed. Skateboarding is very influential in fashion as well. A lot of trends could be started with skating. Such as the way skaters dress with their specific combination of clothes. Overall, I’d say skateboarding is a sport due to its appearance in the olympics and the extremities of doing it. Although skateboarding isn’t exactly a team sport where there are competitions, not all sports are team sports.
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