I recently made a 720 and it was a battle. The last one I made before this was over three years ago, and it’s much harder now all things considered: recently dislocated fingers hinder my grab, my spin is slower so I need to go higher for full rotation and… I’m really old. pic.twitter.com/u8pbwRhS9j
Hawk says it’ll probably be his last one — he’s getting too old, his spin is slower, etc. In 2016, at the age of 48, Hawk hit his final 900:
There’s a way in which watching Hawk perform these tricks and watching, say, 11-year-old Gui Khury perform the world’s first 1080 is the same: they’re both attempting something they aren’t sure they can do at that moment. But Hawk has both the benefit and hindrance of wisdom to draw upon here. He knows he can do a 720 because he’s done probably hundreds of them before, but he’s also battling his body, self-doubt, and probably the tiny voice in the back of his head saying “why exactly do you need to do this, dumbass?” Hawk probably knows better than anyone that as you get older, the true battle in sports (and life) is not against others or the record book, it’s against yourself.
Update: On Twitter, @limitedmitch says: “If you want to feel desperately sad today, Tony Hawk has been sporadically doing tricks ‘for the last time ever’ on his Instagram”.
Estelle Caswell talks to Tony Hawk and architectural historian Iain Borden (author of
Skateboarding and the City) about some of skateboarding’s most iconic spots and how skate architecture has changed over the years, from sidewalks to empty swimming pools in the desert to home-built halfpipes to “if you can see it you can skate it” structures (curbs, handrails, hydrants) all over cities.
Legendary skater Tony Hawk breaks down 21 increasingly complex skateboarding tricks, from a standard ollie to a kickflip to a McTwist to a 1080 to a couple of tricks that have never been done. As someone who has always been in awe of what skaters can do but hasn’t logged much on-board time myself, I learned a lot from this.
Here’s Kevin Staab, Tony Hawk, and Greg Smith watching a 1983 video of free style skateboarder Rodney Mullen. “Look at him just creating modern street skating, right there”. “Yeah, he goes through this run twice. I’ve seen this video before.” The 1983 version of Tony Hawk makes an appearance at around 3:50 trying to figure out how to ride 2 boards.