Skateboarding is now in its second Olympic games. Tokyo 2020(1) kind of killed most of my excitement I had for the games, as most citizens and residents didn’t want the the event to go on as it did. Still, as a life-long skateboard enthusiast (skater as a teen, longboarder as an adult), I’m still hyped to tune in to the skate events.

Due to a rain delay, the men’s street contest was bumped until after the women’s. As this event is still new, I realize it’s a great many people’s first introduction to competitive skateboarding. I was a little bummed to see so much criticism on social media. Many viewers were questioning why the competitors seemed to fall or fail on so many attempts. I realized that if you’re not familiar with skateboarding, you’d have no idea what you’re looking at. The commentators try to explain core concepts, but it’s a lot to take in at once. I won’t try to expel what makes a switch trick more difficult than a normal stance attempt; that only makes sense after some familiarity.

Simply put, skateboarding is an endeavor of constant failure with occasional reward. In other sports, the goal is more concrete; hit the target, do the tumble, sink the shot, and so on. Skateboarding has an immense amount of variables, the biggest being that the course is always different. Every other sport has a regulation playing field, be it a square, rectangle, track, apparatus, and so on. Every skateboard course is a unique work of craftsmanship designed to inspire the riders. Add to that the countless tricks at the skater’s disposal, plus the variable of performing said tricks in the opposite stance (like throwing a ball with your non-dominant hand). There’s a lot going on and tons of nuance.

In skateboarding, you fail more often than you succeed. Why don’t the skaters stick to the high-percentage tricks they can land on command? Because playing it safe means a low score (it is a judged competition). The skaters can land everything they try, but not every time. A gold-medal run comes from trying hard tricks and being able to land them all within 45 seconds. You have to be on your game at the exact moment, and that’s where mental toughness comes into play, which adds a whole other dimension to the contest.

For those who aren’t familiar with skateboarding, I can see how it’s perhaps not the most satisfying watch. No one wants to see people missing over and over again. And that’s not aligned with our perceptions of what we think the Olympics are about, which is usually perfection. But I’d equate it to baseball, where a great hitter is one that only succeeds 4 out of 10 plate appearances. It’s the grind (pun intended) and overcoming of adversity that makes it so interesting.