An Olympics visual guide: Street skateboarding
I’m Pete, and The Washington Post sent me to Paris to show you some of the wonders and weirdness you couldn’t otherwise see without being here.
Breaking news: I found the skateboarders!
Let me back up. My last dispatch was straight from the sun-baked women’s skateboarding street final, where I expected a crowd full of devoted young shredders to be stoked for their sport’s turn in the Olympic spotlight.
I found four. And they were not all that young.
Where were the local skateboarders?
Around then, I noticed I had forgotten sunscreen and much of my left side was turning pink. But I put my comfort aside and began my first investigative quest of the Games: a search for Parisian skateboarders. (Someone alert the Pulitzer committee!)
To be honest, it wasn’t that much of a search. The first people I asked told me to go straight to Place de la République.
When I saw them, I froze.
Suddenly I felt like preteen Pete, a shy wannabe who aspired to skater-dude cool but fell off the board way too way often.
Then I remembered: Just minutes before, I had stood up in a news conference and asked two Olympic medalists a question — a two-part question, for that matter.
I am not preteen Pete anymore. I am Pete from The Post!
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So I walked right up to the uber-cool, hardcore local skaters and introduced myself. And they were lovely.
Turns out, Place de la République is a bit of a melting pot, a must-skate location for anyone who brings a board to Paris. U.S. Olympian Mariah Duran showed up there a week ago.
Among the people I met were an Argentine and a Colombian, both living in town temporarily, an American traveling through Europe and a father and son from Denmark who had also ridden on my train from the Olympic venue.
Other than the Danes on my train, most of them cared little about the competition happening just two miles away.
They all agreed that it is not the biggest or best-equipped skate park in the city, but it is the best place to socialize, a slice of street skating on a real street.
It was sketchier 15 years or so ago, but the city renovated it in the early 2010s.
Juan, an Argentine living close to Place de la République, said it is a place full of city life, where protesters gather, where office workers and dog-walkers and unhoused people pass by. It is safer, but some grit remains, with graffiti covering the ramps and benches.
Before I left, Gauthier, a 43-year-old Parisian, taught me a trick.
This is what it is supposed to look like:
Sorry, I will not be sharing photos of myself trying it.
Only because of the sunburn, of course.
About this story
Pete’s adventures are mostly those of Artur Galocha, who is reporting from Paris, with help from afar from Bonnie Berkowitz and Álvaro Valiño. Editing by Jason Murray. Graphics editing by Samuel Granados. Copy editing by Ella Brockway.
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