By Sophie Penney
LONDON (Reuters) – Andy Macdonald has team mates younger than his son as he prepares for an Olympic debut as the oldest skateboarder in Paris, but the 50-year-old great reckons he can still teach them a trick or two.
The California-based father of three was announced on Monday as team mate to 2020 Olympic bronze medallist and world champion Sky Brown, 15, and Lola Tambling, 16.
The first male skateboarder to represent Britain at a Games is unfazed by the age gap but amazed to have got so far with what started out as a long shot: “It feels pretty surreal,” he told Reuters.
“I never thought that I would actually qualify for the Games and when I started this process two and a half years ago it was mostly just like this experiment of ‘yeah, maybe I can compete with 14-year-olds when I’m 50’.”
Macdonald is famed for his mastery of the half-pipe vert ramp but will compete in park skating, a faster-moving discipline using a three-dimensional bowl.
Securing his berth at the last chance in a qualifier in Budapest last week, he feels he has something to offer and can learn in return.
“I have an advantage in that I have obviously much more experience in skating in competition and what it takes to mentally prepare and physically prepare,” he said.
“They have the advantage in their youth. They can fall really hard and just bounce right up. They’re like ‘let’s try it again’. And if I fell that hard I would be out for like two weeks.”
“I have a lot of insight as far as technique and different trick variations that maybe they haven’t heard of or haven’t thought of yet and they can try.
“I feed off their youth and their energy because I just try to keep up. I’m 50 years old and when they get all excited ‘lets go, let’s go, keep skating’ I’m like ‘yeah, I got to go and pick up the kids from school’.”
GO GET ‘EM
The record holder for most X Games medals in vert skateboarding, competing with American greats Tony Hawk and Shaun White, Macdonald has a British-born father.
His achievement has gone down well on social media.
“When I announced ‘hey, I qualified’ the 50+ crew was just like ‘yeah, representative for the old guys, go get ’em. Until the wheels fall off’,” he said grinning. “And that’s great.
“If I can motivate people to stay out there doing what they love to do into their 50s and 60s … we’re still learning how long we can ride a skateboard for and who’s to say?
“I’ve had a skateboarding career that’s lasted decades longer than I ever thought it would. And making it to the Olympic Games, getting to take my wife and kids to Paris, is just, like, awesome.”
When Macdonald turned pro in 1994, the vibe was very different. His clean-living lifestyle — no drinking, no partying, no smoking and no tattoos — set him apart.
“I was like an outcast. I used to get all kinds of hell from people who were like ‘you don’t party enough, you train, you’re a trainer’,” he recalled.
Father of two daughters aged eight and 14 and an 18-year-old son, his daily routine has been one of school runs, homework and after-class activities as well as skateboarding.
“From the get-go it was always like ‘can you do this? Can you be an Olympic athlete and still be the dad, the important stuff, the most important things? Raising my kids,” he said. “I’ve been able to do both.
“For me that’s the biggest accomplishment.”
(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in paragraph 1)
(Writing by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)
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