Skateboarding Great Andy Macdonald Headed To Olympics At 50 Years Old

The skateboarding competition at the upcoming Paris Olympics may have the wildest age spread of any event. I mean, just on team Great Britain you’ve got a bonafide legend of the sport Andy Macdonald, who is 50 years old.

The other British skaters competing? According to the BBC, that would be Lola Tambling and 2020 bronze medalist Sky Brown who are 16 and 15-years-old respectively.

Andy Macdonald is the living embodiment of this Steve Buscemi skateboard meme:

I don’t know if you realized this, because I completely forgot, but skateboarding is an Olympic sport these days. There’s always some fat-trimming that can be done at the Summer Olympics (take a hike, rhythmic gymnastics), but I think it’s a good addition and made its debut in 2021 at the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

Macdonald has been a pro skater since 1994 and will be the first male skateboarder to represent Great Britain at the Olympics.

That’s completely insane. 

I, like many who grew up in the late ‘90s/early ’00s, had a skateboarding phase. Mine was pretty lame thanks in large part to the limitations of the Mickey Mouse skateboard I bought at Target (I don’t mean “Mickey Mouse” in the pejorative sense, I mean it actually had a picture of Mickey Mouse on the bottom).

It’s okay though, I wouldn’t have made it as a pro skater anyway. Not just because I couldn’t even do an ollie, but also because I’m not big on energy drinks and chugging Monsters seems like a big part of the sport.

Still, I got very into the X Games and I remember Andy Mac being a big player, but even back then I was under the impression he was one of vert skating’s elder statesmen alongside Tony Hawk, Bob Burnqvist and Bucky Lasek.

I couldn’t believe Macdonald is still at it and it’s going to be awesome to see him throw down (which I think is skater lingo… meh, it might not be) in Paris this summer with kids who are a fraction of his age.

Score another one for the old guys.