History of Skateboarding
It was in the middle of the last century, specifically in the 1950s, when one of today's most fashionable sports first appeared: skateboarding.
This sport, based on the need to bring surfing to land, has its origins in California, specifically among the local surfers who, at that time, dedicated themselves to creating their own land surfboards, or rather, as they are known in English, their "land surfboards." It's worth noting that they added skate wheels to these boards, and it was at this point that skateboarding was born.
Without a doubt, the emergence of this sport was a real catalyst and was one of the first sports to be classified as “extreme”, and it lived up to that reputation, as it must be said that in the early days, throughout the first years of the practice of this sport, many people were injured while practicing it, and it is true that both the equipment used (lacking above all the necessary mobility), as well as the technical training of many of the determined athletes, was far from offering a safe and guaranteed practice.
The development of skateboarding was unstoppable (with the emergence of variables included, as well as different techniques that were being developed with the consolidation of this sport in society) and there was a time when this sport was exceptionally famous, especially in the USA, when one of the biggest dreams of any child was to build their own boards to try to emulate their elders who saw them practice this interesting discipline.
As already mentioned, the early days of skateboarding weren't easy. While the sport developed significantly, its materials and technique still lacked sufficient development to become the great sport it has become in recent decades. It's worth noting that the technical evolution of the people who practice it has been key to this development, but without a doubt, if this hadn't been accompanied by spectacular advances in materials, it wouldn't have been possible.
And the progress has been spectacular in terms of equipment. Long gone are the rudimentary, rise-free boards that gave birth to this fantastic sport. They evolved into rectangular boards that incorporated risers to make the ollie much easier to execute. At the same time, the sides became smaller, becoming rounded, and later, boards began incorporating griptape.
Obviously, all these advances were accompanied by an improvement in the materials themselves, as the boards have gone from being heavy slabs to wooden boards that are endowed with great resistance as well as durability, and the wheels have left behind the initial metal roller model to delve into the discovery of urethane, a great advance that has led, among other things, to a much lighter fit and operation of the boards.
