Tony Hawk’s 900 isn’t a trick for the faint of coronary heart. It contains a full two-and-a-half rotation, and in the event you don’t have sufficient velocity going into it and your spin is simply too gradual, touchdown it’s almost inconceivable, particularly given the truth that you’re blind to your touchdown zone not as soon as, however twice through the trick. Spinning that a lot requires equal components braveness and ability.
Ladies’s skateboarding is flush with thrilling younger superstars who’re chock-full of uncooked expertise and fearlessness.
Tony Hawk landed the primary 900 in a serious competitors again on the 1999 X Video games. Now, a bastion of younger feminine riders is touchdown his tips and revolutionizing the game at what appears like lightspeed. Now, 11-year-old Canadian skater Reese Nelson and 14-year-old Australian Arisa Trew are simply two of those riders.
Arisa Trew is an inspiration to all
Trew turned the primary feminine rider to land the elusive 900 on Could 30, 2024, whereas coaching at Woodward. Earlier in Could, Trew had turn out to be the primary feminine rider to land a change McTwist (a 540 variation).
It’s not Trew’s first time making historical past; she turned the primary feminine rider to land the 720 in competitors at Tony Hawk’s Vert Alert in 2023. Shortly thereafter, Trew received ladies’s skateboard vert gold and park gold on the X Video games California, changing into the youngest X Video games double gold medalist of all time, at simply 13. A 720 is 2 full rotations and was championed by Tony Hawk first in 1985.
Trew’s well-used to placing her mark on historical past, and it’s her confidence and composure that’s helped her do that point and time once more. With regards to approaching a brand new trick, Arisa’s response was easy; “I simply suppose to myself that if I wish to do it, then I can do it,” she stated.
And clearly, Arisa can do it. Her skating fashion is stuffed with spinning and change tips, so it’s clear she felt proper at dwelling studying the 900. To lastly land it, Arisa first practiced the movement and method on a ramp with a comfortable floor (in case of falls). After 4 days of this, Arisa was able to strive it on the vert ramp, and after simply 17 makes an attempt, she nailed it.
“I believe it’s fairly exhausting for folks to be taught, as a result of folks, could be terrified of attempting it on a ramp, since you don’t know the way you’re going to fall on like your first makes an attempt, and it’s quite a lot of spinning. So that you’ve acquired to ensure you decide to the entire thing, so that you don’t harm your self,” Arisa defined.
Trew’s efforts had been acknowledged on the 2024 Laureus World Sports activities Awards, the place she was named Motion Sportsperson of the Yr.
Now that she’s stomped out a couple of 900s, Arisa desires to have the ability to land it extra constantly. On the Ventura X Video games, she’ll have loads of alternatives to showcase her ability on the vert ramp.
“Skating within the X Video games is de facto enjoyable. It’s certainly one of my favourite competitions. As a result of e there’s lots of people there and it’s actually enjoyable and it’s in a very good location. And the park there was actually enjoyable final yr and the vert can be actually good. So I preferred to skate there,” Arisa stated.
Reese Nelson paves the best way for different younger women
Take into consideration the place you had been at 9 years outdated. Reese Nelson was named to Canada Skateboard’s 2022 Nationwide Crew within the park division. A veritable prodigy within the sport, Nelson started skateboarding at simply 4 years outdated. At age 10, Nelson turned the primary feminine rider to do a nostril seize 720.
Now eleven, Nelson is inventing tips (ie, the ‘breakfast burger’) and skating with Tony Hawk on the semi-regular. At Hawk’s 2023 Vert Alert Nelson took first place for ‘finest trick’ with a kickflip noseslide to fakie.
Few issues will encourage kids to take up a brand new ability or interest than watching certainly one of their friends do it; if it seems to be enjoyable, they need in, and in that pressure, Nelson has made fairly the influence on introducing skateboarding to different younger women.
These riders’ influence is felt far past the park. In keeping with the Ladies’s Sports activities Basis’s Go Out and Play: Youth Sports activities in America report, women are two occasions extra seemingly than boys to drop out of sports activities by age 14. Sports activities are an unimaginable avenue in the direction of larger self-confidence, creativity, group, and extra. Participation in a sport like skateboarding, which has all the time been an indicator of innovation and inclusion, permits women freedom of self-expression.
Skateboarding may nonetheless have a notion of being male-dominated, however Nelson and Trew are altering that assumption one history-making trick at a time.
Tony Hawk’s Perspective
Tony Hawk has had an insider’s perspective on each Trew and Nelson’s careers to date. Whereas the character of skateboarding is fluid and ever-innovative, every rider has their distinctive fashion; a calling card, if you’ll.
Hawk described Trew’s fashion as “assured and progressive” and Nelson’s as “intense, inventive, and highly effective past her years.”.
Hawk sees a little bit of himself in each Trew and Nelson.
“I used to be all the time pushed to be taught new tips, irrespective of how far I used to be pushing myself or what rating I had. They each have the identical ardour I needed to hold progressing, and the identical tenacity to not surrender. It’s a novel dedication that comes from inside and may’t be taught,” Hawk stated.
Skateboarding, as Hawk identified, is “not a novelty or area of interest exercise. Skateboarding is a part of the material of our society”. And whereas the game continues to develop in its visibility and worldwide acclaim, so too does the presence and alternatives obtainable to feminine riders.
These younger feminine riders are already having an indelible influence on the expansion of the game for different ladies and women. Their continued excellence solely will increase the assist and infrastructure given to younger women to have the ability to pursue skateboarding as a profession choice.
X Video games had beforehand not held a ladies’s class for vert for 13 years and has now reintroduced it for 2023 and onwards. Followers can tune into the 2024 X Video games Ventura and watch Reese Nelson and Arisa Trew June 28 – 30.
GoSkate has estimated that 40% of recent skate boarders are ladies and women, and as ladies’s skate initiatives (like GrlSwrl) proceed to pop up all around the world and younger kids can watch feminine riders on TV and within the Olympics, skateboarding will solely proceed to develop.
