Most athletes performing at Olympic games dress identically. Disparity occasionally goes beyond nationalistic color palettes, like how track runners wear shorts of varying levels of shortness but, otherwise, nearly all athletes wear variations of the same thing.
Except for the Olympic skateboarders.
At the 2024 Olympic games in Paris, some of the world’s pre-eminent young skateboarders showcased personal style as much as they did outrageous technique.
Across the late July weekend where the Olympic skateboarding events played out, a pageant of perfect non-uniforms played out, reflecting the games’ best aspects: Cultural cross-communication, self-expression, a melting pot of ideas and perspectives.
During the Men’s Street Skate sessions on July 29, for instance, Cordano Russell repped Canada in a shredded singlet and Maple Leaf-branded headband while Japanese gold medal winner Yuto Horigome looked sharp in a black tee and pant set.
During the Women’s set the prior day, South African skater Boipelo Awuah wore street-cool camo pants with a hair-friendly visor and 12-year-old Vareeraya Sukasem repped Thailand in a crisp yellow-on-blue ensemble. Bronze medalist Rayssa Leal, meanwhile, met the nearly 90° heat with a crop top and cargo pants that comprised the colors of the Brazilian flag.
Even on a single team, there was an abundance of individuality: compare Team USA Men’s silver-winning skater Jagger Eaton’s plain white tee against the Postal Service steeze — short sleeves and shorter shorts — of bronze medalist Nyjah Huston, whom Highsnobiety once called the “LeBron James of skateboarding.”
The day prior, their Women’s teammate Poe Pinson, who at one point twisted so heroically that she launched her headphones, rocked a dark pair of Nike skate jeans.
Skateboarding, as much as any sport at the Olympics, is the antithesis of uniformity — literally.
There is no singular skater look; its wardrobe is typically informed by the laissez-faire inclinations of its (often young) proponents, which is at least partially why the sport has so dramatically influenced fashion.
Skaters’ style is utilitarian, comfortable, effortless and, above all, personal. Indeed, it is personal style, epitomized, which is why it’s so beautiful to see the disparity in the Olympic skateboarders’ dress.
This is a wildly different playing field than, say, gymnastics, where every athlete wears an identical singlet to allow for maximum movement, or golf, which allows for a wardrobe as open-ended as skateboarding but leans stylistically conservative.
It’s not even that the Olympic skaters are dressed differently but that they’re all dressed so differently, from crop tops to athletic shorts to denim jeans. As satisfying as the tricks were, the refreshing personal expression matched. It feels right: everyone has their own route, their own signature and their own country-repping clothes to match.
As such, the fairly young Olympic sport — introduced for the first time at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympic games — is already one of the best-dressed.