Rune Glifberg Makes His Olympic Debut

The skateboarding events at the Tokyo Olympics are over and, in our opinion, they were a big success. The winners weren’t necessarily the biggest names, which means new stars have been made. Every single female medalist in skating was a teenager, so clearly women’s skateboarding has a bright future. Youth was served at the Summer Olympics, which is often the case with skating. However, let’s give our love to a skater on the other end of their career.

Rune Glifberg is 46 years old. And yet, he still represented Denmark at the Tokyo Olympics. He was the oldest skateboarder in Tokyo, and he was one of the oldest Olympic athletes full stop. Did he do well? We can’t say he did. Glifberg finished 19th in the prelims. He, well, looked like a 46-year-old trying to compete with the best young skaters in the world.

Even so, this ruled. Rune won his first X Games medal in 1995, before many of his competitors were born. He’s in the first Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game. Skaters like Glifberg and Hawk were in their primes when the idea of skateboarding being at the Olympics was absurd on its face. It took years of pushing to finally make it happen. When it did, a guy like Hawk was too old to compete. Glifberg could have said the same thing. He didn’t, though. This was going to be his only chance to compete in the Olympics, and Rune took it. It’s a fine capper to an incredible career. If you are one of those skateboarders who feel like it’s about passion and art more than competition, then Glifberg is the Olympic story for you. Dig into his story more here. Congrats again, Rune.