World Skate
World Skate is the current IOC recognised organisational body for roller sports, including skateboarding, rink hockey, inline hockey, inline speed skating, inline alpine, downhill, roller derby, roller freestyle, inline freestyle, Freestyle scootering, aggressive inline skating, inline figure skating and artistic roller skating. The organisation is the result of the merger of the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS) and the International Skateboarding Federation (ISF) in September 2017 after the ISF's involvement with the scheduled skateboarding events at the Japan 2020 Olympics were rejected.[1]
 | |
| Sport | Roller sports |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Abbreviation | WS |
| Founded | September 2017 |
| Headquarters | Lausanne, Switzerland |
| President | Sabatino Aracu |
| Official website | |
| www | |
Competitions
World Roller Games
Since 2017 World Skate has organised the World Roller Games, comprising all the world roller sport disciplines as regulated by the World Skate international federation.[2] The games involve 11 World Championships in one multi-sport event.[3]
Olympic Games
Skateboarding events have been introduced for the 2020 Summer Olympics, with two events: park and street. Much like BMX cycling, the park event will feature what resembles an empty swimming pool.[4] Competitors will have three timed runs for tricks. On street, there will be ramps and rails for routines and tricks. There will be a total of 80 total spots, with 20 in each event. Each country can enter a maximum of three athletes in each event.[5]
World Games
The International World Games Association (IWGA) announced on 16 April 2018 that roller sports would be one of the 30 official sports competing for gold in the Birmingham, Alabama between 15–25 July at the 2021 World Games. Birmingham marks the 40th anniversary of the event which will feature 3,600 athletes from more than 100 countries. This the first time the World Games has returned to the United States since 1981.[6]
On the programme for the 2021 World Games to be held in Birmingham, Alabama there are 4 roller sports disciplines; Artistic, Inline hockey, Speed Skating Road and Speed Skating track. Roller sports is the only sport on the World Games programme represented in three clusters. Speed Skating belongs to "Trend Sports", Artistic to "Artistic Sports" and Inline Hockey to "Ball Sports".[7]
Pan American Games
In May 2019, the scheduled skateboarding event was removed from the Lima 2019 Pan American Games.
Panam Sports announced that skateboarding was removed from the sports program because World Skate could not guarantee that the best possible athletes would be in attendance. World Skate had scheduled a World Tour event which had an overlapping time frame with the Pan American Games. World Skate would also not authorize the competition as an Olympic qualifier.[8]
Continental Areas
World Skate comprises five continental areas, each involved in organising their own continental competitions:
- World Skate Africa
- World Skate America
- World Skate Asia
- World Skate Europe
- World Skate Oceania
References
- "Further steps taken as excitement builds for skateboarding's Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020". olympic.org. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
- "World Roller Games 2019". WRG2019. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
- "Disciplines". World Roller Games 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
- "Skateboarding". Tokyo 2020. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- "10 things to know about new sports and events in 2020 Olympics". USA Today. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- "IWGA announce participating sports for world games 2021". The World Games 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- "Roller Sports". The World Games.org. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- "insidethegames.biz report titled "Skateboarding axed from Lima 2019 Pan American Games programme"". insidethegames.biz. Retrieved 26 September 2019.