Andy Macdonald may have spent decades as a professional skateboarder, but the veteran athlete was an excited newcomer at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
On Aug. 7, the 51-year-old Macdonald was cheered on by fellow skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, 56, as he became the oldest skateboarder to ever compete in an Olympic Games. Macdonald went pro in 1994 and is decades older than his fellow Team Great Britain skateboarders, 16-year-olds Sky Brown and Lola Tambling.
Macdonald, a 23-time X Games champion, zipped through the skatepark during the preliminaries Wednesday, showing off flashy moves including a madonna and a body varial 540.
While he didn’t win a medal, Macdonald is calling the experience the thrill of his professional career.
“I could have fallen on every run and just be as happy as I am now. It doesn’t matter,” Macdonald told Olympics.com after the event. “It’s just been the experience of a lifetime.”
After Macdonald arrived in Paris, he spent several days exploring and getting to know his fellow athletes, he said.
“I was getting like, four hours of sleep because I was up in the Olympic Village. I bought an electric skateboard so I was just zooming around, just like meeting everybody,” he said.
“It’s a really beautiful thing to be a part of; just being here, being an Olympian,” he added. “And then today was even more special. Like the icing on the cake that I got to be here and participate.”
Skateboarding is a relatively new sport at the Olympics. It debuted in 2021 at the Tokyo Summer Games and has already been approved for the Los Angeles Games in 2028, per NBC Olympics.
Macdonald first hinted at his plans to compete in an Olympics in an August 2022 post on Instagram.
The athlete, who was born and raised just outside Boston, Massachusetts, and holds dual citizenship because of his English-born father, revealed at the time that he qualified for Great Britain’s national skateboard park team.
Hawk, who clapped for his former vert doubles partner at Wednesday’s event, told Olympic organizers he was “proud” of Macdonald — but hardly surprised by his tenacity.
“Andy is a prime example of how much discipline can pay off,” he said, adding, “You can always count on him to do something amazing.”
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This article was originally published on TODAY.com
