How the skateboarding subculture has changed: extreme sports star Pat Duffy at the Grand Skate Tour in Moscow

Skateboarding is a subculture that seems to have a history of more than half a century, but only now has it started to gain serious sporting status.

For example, skateboarding competitions were held for the first time in history at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo last year. And now the Extreme Sports Festival Big Skating Tour begins in the Russian capital and will last until September 11 at VDNKh. Five thousand participants from 28 countries are participating in the festival: Azerbaijan, Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Zambia, Egypt, Israel, Spain, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Colombia, Cuba, Madagascar, Mongolia, PMR , Russia, Serbia, USA , Tajikistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, France, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, South Africa.

“28 countries that are incredible in today’s times. We can’t even believe that we managed to get everyone a visa, handle the logistics and buy tickets. But probably, when it’s hard, something really important happens. It seems to me that this year the Grand Skate Tour is probably the most interesting and largest youth sports city event in terms of international presence,” he said. Press conference.

And to be honest, the scale is impressive: in the center of VDNKh, sports grounds are built for competitions, a large number of participants who speak different languages, but they are united by a love of skateboarding, the first privately opened museum. Boards in history located in the exhibition center of the Republic of Belarus.

Also, a sports legend came to the capital – the famous skateboarder Pat Duffy, who looked completely incredible during the period of strained relations with foreign countries.

“Someone was worried about safety, sponsors would react negatively. We managed to convince a lot of people to come to us, including skateboarding legend Pat Duffy,” admits Vdovin.

Since the special guest of the event did not have time to come to Moscow, he had already managed to wander around the competition venue and give a public speech with the festival participants. The athlete talked about his career path and the difficulties that he had to overcome.

“We, as the Russian Skateboarding Federation, started doing this before it became mainstream. That is, adding a section to ordinary sports competitions where you can talk about meanings, about the development of sports, exchange ideas. And it’s great that this project has become an annual event. And it’s even cooler that VDNKh is hosting this year because there are guys from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia here. This forum is a symbolic association that intersects with the concept of VDNH, ”, Vice-President of the Russian Skateboarding Federation, Irina Neuimina, Director of the II International Forum-Festival of the CIS countries, shared her feelings at a press conference. conference.

Meanwhile, while the athletes examine the new field, the organization team continues to prepare for the opening of the competition section. By the way, it starts on Saturday. However, the hottest time will be on Sunday, as the final part of the event will start today at 16:00 and the best of the best will compete for the title. The Grand Skate Tour schedule can be found on the official website of VDNKh.