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For any other sport, that would be a cause for celebration. But skateboarding isn't like any other sport.

When Tokyo organizers first recommended that skateboarding be added to the lineup, thousands of people signed a petition asking the International Olympic Committee to decide otherwise. Once it became official, many in the skateboarding community reacted with disdain.

Thrasher, the San Francisco-based skateboarding magazine, put it like this: "Like many skaters, we have mixed feelings about skateboarding appearing in the next Olympics. And by mixed feelings we mean disgust combined with a headache."

Over the years, it's battled an outlaw reputation, persisting even as skateboarders were allowed few spaces where they could skate freely.

For skateboarding to go from the counterculture to the most mainstream of sporting events is, to a certain subset of skaters, selling out.

"What people are against, what they're worried about is that they're going to lose a little bit of that freedom to explore," said Neftalie Williams, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California and a visiting fellow at the Yale Schwarzman Center who studies skate culture.

Benefits of Inclusion


 * It gives a platform to marginalized skaters

Some of the most vocal arguments against Olympic skateboarding have come from men and male-dominated spaces.

It's a reality not lost on Adrian Koenigsberg. She's the founder of Quell Skateboarding, a media outlet dedicated to increasing the visibility of women, gender non-conforming people and other marginalized skateboarders.

Men, Koenigsberg says, have always had the platforms and the opportunities to express themselves through skateboarding. They've dominated the covers of magazines, been able to secure big-name sponsorships and had contests to compete in that women didn't.

While the landscape has started to change, it's hard to deny the opportunity that the Olympics affords women and LGBTQ skateboarders.

"For a very long time, our history as nontraditional skateboarders has been erased in media, so it is really exciting right now to see that playing out in the Olympics and having that public space," she said. "Because for so long, we have had to fight for those public spaces and any sort of visibility."


 * Greater exposure to the sport and change the sprts reputation

The Olympics also have the potential to introduce skateboarding to people who otherwise might not have engaged with the sport.

Skateboarding is a vehicle for building self-confidence, learning to overcome challenges and expressing yourself creatively. That even a few more young people might reap those same benefits is reason to applaud its inclusion at the Olympics. While skateboarding is ever popular in the US, the sport faces challenges here and around the world. Some communities have few, if any, places to skate, while others penalize skaters for daring to ride in public spaces. Even in Japan, where the inaugural Olympics skateboarding competitions are being held, skateboarding was long considered dangerous and those who did it were seen as rebels and misfits. Though the arrival of the Olympics has somewhat shifted the country's attitudes toward skateboarding, it's still frowned upon in some public places.

There may come a time when skateboarders decide the Olympics no longer serves their best interests, but for now these Tokyo Games offer a chance to redefine the sport and allow a broader range of skaters to see themselves represented on a global stage. And that, is what the spirit of skateboarding is really about.