Current:Home > Contact49-year-old skateboarder Dallas Oberholzer makes mom proud at Paris Olympics -Ascend Finance Compass
49-year-old skateboarder Dallas Oberholzer makes mom proud at Paris Olympics
View
Date:2025-04-14 23:04:19
PARIS – Dallas Oberholzer came to Paris knowing he would finish last in the men’s park skateboarding competition. He’s 49 years old, for goodness sakes, competing in a sport ruled by Gen Z. He’s also from South Africa, a country where skateboarding has no infrastructure or funding. He’s spent decades traveling the world, funding this journey himself, often barely scraping by in search of the next good vibe.
Before the sport went corporate, before the Olympics, before Tony Hawk and Shaun White, that’s what skateboarding was really all about.
But being here hasn’t been all bad. Even as he approaches his 50th birthday he’s still growing, still learning. He even went to visit an osteopath in the Olympic Village the other day because, well, the knees don’t feel so good these days coming off the board.
“It was incredible,” he said. “As skaters, we used to get hurt and then go under the bridge and smoke weed. That’s how we used to recover. It’s become a science, and it’s only due to this format of skateboarding that I’ve been able to carry on and actually improve my performance. It’s crazy. I mean, how do you get your personal best at 49?”
Get Olympics updates in your texts! Join USA TODAY Sports' WhatsApp Channel
2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.
Oberholzer’s top score of 33.83 in qualifying won’t stand out in the history books, but his fist-pumping reaction when he got off the skateboard – and the standing ovation he received from the crowd – looked like he just won the gold medal.
Part of that was rooted in who was there watching: His mother.
It had been, Oberholzer said, 28 years since she watched him skate. It was just one of those typical things: Parents, especially when he was growing up, didn’t exactly envision their kids skateboarding as a job. And even then, it wasn’t much of one. Oberholzer traveled around the world, mentored young skaters, helped raise some money to build parks.
Even as a kid, she wanted him to play tennis. To him, it seemed like it would be more fun to be the tennis ball flying through the air.
“I started skating just because it was the best thing I could imagine,” he said. “It was the best feeling in my body, it was the best way to express myself and just blow up energy and put it into something that’s instant reward. You’re not waiting for your points or whatever place in the moment. Everything’s electrifying.”
Now, it’s a competition sport. It’s an Olympic sport. Skaters have entourages with coaches and physios. These days, It’s all about the scoreboard.
“God help us,” he said. “It’s becoming a bit too serious, and the youngsters might be doing it for ulterior reasons and pushed into it at a young age.”
But being in the Olympics keeps Oberholzer relevant in the sport. In his ideal world, somebody would see him on television and call him up and say they want to build a skate park and high-performance center in South Africa so that it could be accessible to more people and elevate the sport in his country the way it has grown in Brazil. In his country, skateboarding is more of a luxury than an activity that anyone can just go down and do at their local park.
“I’m not going to hang this thing up soon,” he said. “I hope there’s more Africans that can pick up skateboarding, but these kind of facilities are hard to come by. That’s why I need to travel to stay relevant in this terrain.”
Will Oberholzer make it to the next Olympics in Los Angeles? It’s a possibility. He thinks he can stay healthy and fit enough to compete. It’s a bit of a strange dynamic to be nearly 50 years old and hanging out with teenagers, but there’s something about this sport that connects generations.
“I don’t feel detached from them,” he said. “I’m surrounded by youth, and I’ve surrounded myself with youth development programs for so many years, not knowing really maybe why. But maybe it kept me young.”
And one thing never changed for Oberholzer: He still wants to impress his mother. Getting her to Paris was a big deal. Her advice was to do one big trick. He landed it early in the run, but by the end his legs gave out. He fell off the skateboard. He still had a lot to celebrate.
“She accepted that I’m a skateboarder and an Olympian at the same time,” Oberholzer said. “That’s my greatest accomplishment.”
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
veryGood! (4)
Related
- EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
- 2023 Atlantic hurricane outlook worsens as ocean temperatures hit record highs, forecasters say
- Maui residents had little warning before flames overtook town. At least 53 people died.
- Las Vegas police videos show moments before home is raided in Tupac Shakur cold case
- Are Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp down? Meta says most issues resolved after outages
- Cats in Cyprus treated with COVID medicine as virus kills thousands on island
- Mark Williams: The Trading Titan Who Conquered Finance
- The Complicated Aftermath of Anne Heche's Death
- Dick Vitale announces he is cancer free: 'Santa Claus came early'
- Wholesale inflation in US edged up in July from low levels
Ranking
- Romantasy reigns on spicy BookTok: Recommendations from the internet’s favorite genre
- Family of Henrietta Lacks files new lawsuit over cells harvested without her consent
- San Francisco has lots of self-driving cars. They're driving first responders nuts
- Is this a bank?
- NHL in ASL returns, delivering American Sign Language analysis for Deaf community at Winter Classic
- Iowa State RB Jirehl Brock, three other starters charged in gambling investigation
- James Williams: The Crypto Visionary's Journey to Pioneering Digital Currency Investment
- Beer in Britain's pubs just got cheaper, thanks to changes in the alcohol tax
Recommendation
North Carolina justices rule for restaurants in COVID
Review: Netflix's OxyContin drama 'Painkiller' is just painful
Prosecutors won’t seek death penalty for woman accused of killing, dismembering parents
Visiting gymnastics coach denies voyeurism charge in Vermont
Rams vs. 49ers highlights: LA wins rainy defensive struggle in key divisional game
50 Cent, Busta Rhymes celebrate generations of rappers ahead of hip-hop's milestone anniversary
Kyle Richards’ Husband Mauricio Umansky Reacts to Her Steamy New Morgan Wade Video
James Williams: From Academics to Crypto Visionary