Olympics: ‘One body part after another’: skateboarder’s Tokyo road littered with broken tooth, wrists, ankles

Skateboarding will make its Olympic debut later this month. Australia’s Hayley Wilson is on the historic first national team. She’s broken bones before her sport breaks new ground at Tokyo.

Olympic skateboarder Hayley Wilson shows off her skills in Melbourne. Picture: Alex Coppel

Had a few stacks?

“Just a few!” laughed Australian Olympic skateboarder Hayley Wilson.

“Concrete definitely isn’t the nicest thing to fall on. I’ve smashed my front tooth out. Broken my wrists. Done my ankle. Well, I’ve done both ankles, a few times. Done my elbow. Done my … you know, it’s just been one body part after another. But what skateboarding has taught me, 100 per cent, is that if we can fall onto concrete however many times a day, but get back up and go again – I’m pretty sure that means we can do anything.”

Australia’s Olympic skateboard team was about to be ­announced on Friday morning. I waited with bated breath for the unveiling of a handful of scruffy 14-year-old layabouts who’d agreed to wag school for a couple of weeks to go to the Tokyo Games, mindful of the fact they must immediately get haircuts, find some pants that fit, go easy on the sneaky cigarettes behind the halfpipe and understand that spray-painting their graffiti everywhere would probably contravene Rule 50 of the stuffy old Olympic Charter.

But Wilson introduced me to a whole other world of skateboarders. A world in which they were full-time sportspeople. A world in which they trained twice a day, every day, like the proper sportspeople. A world in which they hit the gym, three times a week, like the proper sportspeople. A world in which they worked tirelessly and fearlessly on their skills like the proper sportspeople. Five of Australia’s best were confirmed to be on their way to this month’s historic first Olympic skateboarding jam in Japan.

The Australian team: Wilson, Shane O’Neill, Poppy Starr Olsen, Keegan Palmer and Kieran Woolley. There will be gold medals up for grabs in the street and park ­divisions in Tokyo. Street: a replica of urban terrain, featuring stairs, rails and ledges to be skimmed across or jumped over. Park: the more traditional concrete bowls.

The 19-year-old Wilson, from Mansfield in Victoria, said: “I want to win. My number one goal is to bring home gold for Australia and make everyone proud. But it’s also to make myself proud. Just being there will be a massive achievement. To be named on an Olympic team – it’s happened, it’s actually happened, but it still doesn’t feel real. I don’t know when it will feel real but at the moment I just feel amazing and grateful and so honoured to be chosen on Australia’s first ever skateboarding Olympic team.”

Asked what thrills and spills TV viewers could expect on the Games’ broadcast, Wilson said: “It’s going to be such an eye-opener for everyone. Skating is so creative. Everyone is so different. It’s like art for us. We’re creating an art form and now we’re going to be able to express it on the world stage in front of millions of people.”