Can that really work? «, Commented» FAZ «in 2016 on the inclusion of skateboarding in the Olympic program. Other media also measured the conflict between “style”, “freedom” and the rules of Olympic operations. In Germany, this question now seems to be answered with no: where skateboards are emblazoned on the first sports promotional stamps, the Olympic structures that have emerged since 2016 have broken down.
At the end of June, the German Rollsport- und Inlineverband (DRIV), to which the roller board is assigned, declared that its Skateboard Sports Committee (SKSB), which was created in 2017, was dissolved. Instead, a full-time Olympic sporting commission is to take over their tasks. The shot voluntary skater representation protested sharply and wants to discuss the consequences in autumn.
Every argument has two sides. The version of the association – sports director Stephan Reifenberg does not want to comment exactly because he is considering “legal steps” – goes something like this: Unprofessional skate scene purists endanger the Olympic tickets of promising German starters Tyler Edtmayer and Lilly Stoephasius. The emergency brake had to be pulled.
In fact, the World Skate Association (WS) had two phases for the qualification. The first included spring and summer 2019, the second autumn 2019 and winter and spring 2020. Now the qualification-relevant German championship (DM) takes place in summer. Therefore, German starters had only one instead of two domestic chances to collect points – or the DM 2020 would have had to be brought forward a few months.
The SKSB around the chairman Hans-Jürgen “Cola” Kuhn and deputy Shiran Habekost declined. Unfortunately, one wrote in the “Perspective Squad” in winter, one could not offer “another national points cushion”. A sentence that left sports officials understandable with their mouths open and angered the qualifiers. After complaints to the athletes’ representative, the DRIV dropped Kuhn in February, but was stopped by the association’s court. In the end there was the dissolution of the commission.
A sign of recognition – but the grip on the knee would be stylish. Source: Deutsche Post
A veritable sports scandal? Michael Meiber-Hinrichs is very critical of this championship decision. “Cola and Shiran screwed it up,” says the Oldenburg, who was a regional specialist for Lower Saxony on the commission. Too often, the chairpersons had shown themselves to be uncooperative. You can’t “participate in an Olympic association and keep saying how little you think about it.” In fact, it must have sounded strange for the DRIV when Kuhn said as a man for his only Olympic sport in the “sports show” that it wasn’t really appropriate.
Nevertheless, the story can also be told differently. Eleven out of 15 state specialists defend the decision, which Kuhn explains as follows: A competition recognized by the world association in the park discipline – in which Edtmayer and Stoephasius would have good qualification chances even without extra championships – is difficult to carry out in the first third of the year. There are hardly any parcours required for this from many nested curves in this country – especially not under cover. You would have to cancel even with a little moisture. Above all, it was not possible to convey in skateboarding, “simply topple the DM that has just established itself as a brand just because of possible Olympic points for two or three athletes.”
Which brings you to the cultural conflict that was widely debated from »FAZ« to »Zeit«, but which is obviously difficult to internalize for the sports system: In the world of skateboarding, which in its present form has been the sporty arm of » Counterculture «, Olympia is not the big thing it all comes down to. Conversely, it is much more likely that Olympia – including the concept of competition-centered competitive sports – will effectively apply for access to skateboarding.
You can call that big-headed. In an environment in which the label “sport” is often rejected, you have to know that. The SKSB showed how to establish something “official” in such a landscape in the redesign of the German Championships. These have been taking place since 2018 as part of the Skate Week, a multi-day event in various formats beyond the competition course, such as best trick sessions on the street. The DM is not necessarily central to this skate festival. But what was well received in the scene alienated the umbrella organization: How can you organize an official championship as a conclusion? During the day to the big party?
According to Chris Eggers, the Baden specialist, such sport-cultural differences became a permanent problem. In the beginning there was even a debate as to whether the national coaches needed a skate background or whether an A license was not more important, in whatever sport. As of 2018, when the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) decreed that Olympic matters would have to be looked after by full-time officials, the wrangling also increased according to Kuhn. Sometimes it was about the last word on the squad, sometimes about DM participants who only registered with nicknames. Or about the rigidity of the attitude to cannabis, which – because it has an inhibitory effect – is on the doping list, but is not prohibited outside of competitions. Neither sports director Reifenberg nor skateboard competitor Sebastian Barrabas have any experience in skateboarding. This is the majority of the version of the defunct SKSB, here ambitious sports officials reached for something that they did not understand.
It is true that most skaters, instead of Olympic gold, dream of the title “Skater of the Year”, which the magazine “Thrasher” awards – and for which there is no need to compete. This is not a childhood illness, but the DNA of this sports culture. Titus Dittmann, founder of the skateboard chain “Titus” and often acted as the “father of the scene”, recently appeared to be Olympic skeptical. At the same time, the becoming Olympic of skateboarding relatives such as surfing, BMX freestyle and all of the halfpipe and slopestyle variants of the winter games shows that this model of sport is gaining in importance as a cultural scene. After Germany’s Games in Pyeongchang, DOSB President Alfons Hörmann described why Germany has so far failed to do so: in “the disciplines that go in the direction of trend and fun,” one is “not positioned in terms of professionalism”. If you want to change that, the question remains, what does “professional” mean?
In the short term, the DRIV, who found highly competent training staff with Jürgen Horrwarth and Lea Schairer, can bring his two top athletes to Tokyo in 2021 even without SKSB – with or without championships that are drawn through in the qualification phases. At the same time, however, there are organizational problems. Shiran Habekost, who is a member of the international association in the responsible commission and chairman in its European department, assures that the Germans “naturally have no disadvantages” because of the dispute. However, cooperation with the grass roots in most of the federal states and many municipalities could be difficult – also with regard to the urgent offensive in the construction of plants according to world association standards. The recently growing number of member clubs could ebb or turn.
The snubbed SKSB was not a subcultural hardliner club, but the part of the scene that was still most open to sports. This has just been demonstrated. The echo among the many who consider not just the Olympics, but already the club and association to be nonsense, fluctuates between LOL and ROFL: Sorry, but we told you that right away! Without countermeasures, the DRIV risks repeating history: around 1990, its predecessor, the German Roller Sports Federation, failed to organize skateboarding sustainably. Here, too, it was essentially about the contradiction between scene and association culture. Kuhn, already a central figure at that time, deftly represented the association’s position at the time. He seems to have learned lessons from this history.
One can find guilt for this belly landing on both sides. But it is clear that in the long term it can also cause a competitive sport problem: Most recently, the DM of 2019 showed that a culturally isolated Olympic apparatus would hardly get around in the long term: in the discipline »street« – using the jumping technique “Ollie” is a course of stairs, slopes and edges – the Olympic team Alex Mizurov and Denny Pham finished fifth and sixth. The winner, Justin Sommer, doesn’t want anything to do with Olympia. He would have the qualifications in his feet.
The skateboarder from Berlin, known throughout Europe, will hardly change his attitude. However, if the DRIV wants to become more successful according to its own standards, it must find ways of integrating a next or the next but one Justin Summer in addition to all training science and professionalization. What has now happened to the Skateboard Commission, however, acts as the opposite signal in large parts of the scene. A little dialectic could help here: Sometimes you shouldn’t push too hard what you want to achieve.
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