The World Skate federation has officially introduced a minimum age requirement for Olympic skateboarders, starting with athletes aiming to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
To be eligible for Olympic competition in Los Angeles, skateboarders must be born in 2014 or earlier, according to a new rule announced by World Skate, the international governing body for the sport.
This marks the first time an age limit has been introduced for Olympic skateboarding. The age requirement is being gradually phased in, beginning with World Skateboarding Tour events. By 2025, athletes must have been born in 2014 or earlier to compete. The minimum birth year will increase by one each year — in 2026, 2027, and 2028 — meaning the 2014 cutoff will remain in effect for the Los Angeles Games.
World Skate stated that the decision came after detailed discussions during a post-Paris Olympics review process. The federation said there was broad agreement that as the level of competition in Olympic skateboarding rises, it has become necessary to introduce a minimum age to protect young athletes.
“Supported throughout the debriefing with the largest collective consensus was the learning that the accelerating standard and corresponding challenges in Olympic skateboarding has necessitated the introduction of a minimum age limit,” World Skate explained in a statement.
Skateboarding debuted at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. At both the Tokyo and Paris Games, there were no minimum age limits for athletes competing in the sport.
That open policy led to some historic records. In Tokyo, Japan’s Kokona Hiraki won a silver medal in the park event just three weeks before turning 13. According to Olympic historians at OlyMADMen, she became the youngest Olympic medalist since 1936.
Fellow Japanese athlete Momiji Nishiya won the gold medal in women’s street skating in Tokyo a month before her 14th birthday, making her the youngest Summer Olympic gold medalist since 1960.
Under the new rules, Hiraki would have been too young to participate in Tokyo, while Nishiya would have just made the cut by four months.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, the trend of young champions continued. Fourteen-year-old Arisa Trew of Australia took gold in the women’s park event, while 14-year-old Coco Yoshizawa of Japan won gold in women’s street.
China’s Zheng Haohao, who competed in the women’s park event in Paris at just 11 years old — five days before her 12th birthday — was the youngest athlete in any sport at the Games. She finished 18th out of 22 competitors. According to OlyMADMen, Zheng was the youngest Olympic competitor since 1992.
The newly implemented age rule aims to align Olympic skateboarding with standards seen in other sports, ensuring a balance between youthful talent and athlete safety. As skateboarding evolves within the Olympic movement, this rule is expected to shape the future of the sport and its rising stars.