Skateboarding discipline
Park
Park skateboarding is ridden in a course of curved bowls, ramps, and transitions, where skaters use momentum to link tricks into continuous flowing runs.
Overview
Park skateboarding takes place on a course made up of curved, hollowed-out surfaces such as bowls, pools, and transitions, where the terrain itself helps generate speed.
Skaters use the walls and lips of the course to gain air, perform aerial tricks and grinds, and connect them into flowing lines.
Park is one of the two skateboarding disciplines at the Olympic Games, contested as timed runs that are judged on the run as a whole.
What defines it
- Uses transition terrain like bowls, pools, and curved ramps rather than flat street obstacles.
- Momentum and pumping the transitions are central to maintaining speed through a run.
- Rewards aerial tricks, grinds on the coping, and smooth linking of one section to the next.
- Typically judged on complete runs, considering flow, difficulty, height, and use of the whole course.
- Blends elements of both street-style tricks and transition riding.
Getting started
- 1Build confidence riding on flat ground and gentle slopes before entering a bowl or transition.
- 2Start on shallow transitions to learn how to pump for speed and roll up and down a wall.
- 3Progress to steeper sections and small airs gradually as your comfort with transition grows.
Other Skateboarding disciplines
The forms of Skateboarding sit alongside each other — explore the rest.
Explore across the knowledge base
Follow the threads that connect Park to the rest of SocialSportHub.
Sports
- SkateboardingA creative board sport of rolling, balancing and learning tricks on streets, paths and skateparks.
- CricketA bat-and-ball team sport where sides take turns to bat and to bowl and field, scoring runs.
- Figure SkatingAn artistic ice sport combining glides, spins, jumps and footwork into flowing routines.
- BaseballA bat-and-ball team sport where two sides alternate between batting and fielding to score runs.
- TriathlonA multi-sport endurance event that links swimming, cycling and running into one continuous race.
Knowledge Atlas
- Explore by SkillThe learnable actions of a sport — grouped into families and linked to the techniques and sports that use them.
- Explore by SportThe master navigator — every sport, organised by category, what it builds, where it is played and how to begin.
- Explore by EquipmentThe gear of sport — grouped by kind and linked to the sports and beginner guides that use it.
- Explore by GoalStart from the outcome you care about — each goal opens into the sports, qualities and habits that serve it.
Strategies
- Transition PlayTransition play is the strategy of switching quickly between attack and defence the moment possession changes, exploiting the opponent's brief disorganisation.
- Building momentumMomentum is the sense that a contest is flowing one side's way — building it means stacking positive plays while working to interrupt an opponent's run.
Skateboarding