Skateboarding at the Paris 2024 Olympics: Why are there so many young teenagers in the Olympic competitions ?

Lucie Schoonheere a disputé ses premiers Jeux Olympiques à 14 ans. MAXPPP – LP/Olivier Arandel

Zheng Haohao, Louise-Aïna Taboulet ou encore Lucie Schoonheere… Nombreuses sont les skateuses en lice aux Jeux Olympiques de Paris 2024 à n’être encore que des adolescentes.

“23 is really old”, skater Roos Zwetsloot confided a few days ago in Paris. And she's not really wrong. At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the average age of the men's competition (23) was much higher than that of the women (14).

There are several reasons for this gap. Skateboarding is a sport that puts a lot of strain on the joints, and is practiced from a very young age. The selection process therefore tends to favour younger girls, who are more competitive, while older girls have not been able to take advantage of skateboarding's recent entry into the Olympic Games. Before Tokyo 2021, the sport was more governed by an international circuit, more focused on urban culture.

British Sky Brown won silver at 13 years and 28 days

At the Tokyo Olympics, British Sky Brown won silver at just 13 years old. This year, Lucie Schoonheere (14 years old) and Louise-Aïna Taboulet (15 years old) were the youngest athletes in the French delegation. China's Zheng Haohao also made an impression in Paris, having started competing at just eleven years old, a few months after graduating from primary school.“We think that the level will age, with the maturity of the sport”, explained Alain Nègre, director of performance at the French Skateboarding Federation, in comments relayed by Le Parisien.

Louise-Aïna Taboulet represented France at 15 years old. EPA – YOAN VALAT

“I've always been accompanied by my brother on skateparks. But if you're all alone, it's less easy”, revealed Lucie Schoonheere, who hoped to shake things up when she entered the Paris Games. With one girl for every ten boys currently, skateboarding, which was a predominantly male discipline, should take a few more years before achieving parity. In Japan, programs have in any case been launched to encourage young people to take up competitive skateboarding, going so far as to ban its practice in the street in order to unearth the best nuggets.