After the sport’s Olympics debut in Tokyo four years ago, skateboarding has returned for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. While you may know a few things about the event – such as how, similar to other outdoor sports like surfing, skateboarding is dependent on weather conditions (hence why it was initially postponed due to rain) – what you may not know is how skateboarding is scored. Fortunately, it’s not too tricky, even for newbies.
If you’re tuning in for the first time, allow us to break down the basics. Although there are two separate types of skateboarding events – called street skateboarding and park skateboarding – both have a pretty similar scoring structure. Judges award points to skaters based on things like speed, creativity, difficulty, balance and stability, and other components. There are also two phases, tricks and runs, to take into consideration, which is a new and updated scoring measure for the Paris 2024 competition.
According to the Olympics website, there was also a new rule implemented for the trick phase of the competition called the “Scoring Refusal Procedure.” This means a skateboarder can now have one trick removed from the record, as long as they attempt to recreate it and improve upon its current score, without penalty.
Here’s what you need to know about the two types of skateboarding you’ll see and how each one is scored.
– Additional reporting by Jade Esmeralda
Related: How Learning to Skateboard Transformed My Life at 35
