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Business Daily

The women breaking into skateboarding in South Africa

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4816 Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Skateboarding is one of the fastest growing sports in the world; it was included for the first time in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan. It's becoming increasingly popular among women and girls, but it does come with a price tag.

Hannah Mullane speaks to Boipelo Awuah, one of only two female African athletes to qualify to compete in skateboarding at the Tokyo Olympics. Wendy Gila, the head of the South African Roller Sports Association, gives us her insight into how much it costs to make a sport like skateboarding accessible to everyone.

Mark Sedgwick meets Thato Moet, Founder of IslandGals, a girls only skate group in Johannesburg. She gives her perspective on what it’s like to be a female skater in South Africa. We’ll also hear from Pieter Retief, who helps to build skateparks all over the world and explains how they help to bring together communities. Presenter and producer: Hannah Mullane Reporter and producer: Mark Sedgwick

Image: Girls skating in Soweto; Credit: BBC

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The bomb unearths a gripping true story of espionage at the core of the British-American atomic research programmes.

0:09.7

Find out more in season two of The Bomb, a podcast from the BBC World Service, available now.

0:19.0

Can I say, say bomb, pass, we're taking you to the skate parks of South Africa.

0:33.9

As the sun shines in Johannesburg in the north of the country, the skate park starts to get busy,

0:40.1

and it looks a little different to how it might have in the past. Why? Because there's more women there.

0:45.6

You can meet these new people who become your friends. It's like you don't have family. Family,

0:51.0

yeah, they're there for each other. Even if you don't know anyone, you'll find someone and you can be cool.

0:56.0

Yeah.

0:57.0

For a long time, skate parks were limited and only really seen in the big cities, which meant

1:02.0

they were almost exclusively used by those who could pay to get to them or afford to live nearby.

1:07.0

So why are we now seeing skate parks pop up all over the country?

1:13.7

And what's been holding the girls back from taking up the sport?

1:19.2

We still find that on Saturday mornings the girls can maybe not attend training because they're looking after siblings.

1:21.6

They need to clean the house where the brothers are allowed out

1:25.6

and they can go and do their sport. So religious and

1:29.9

cultural beliefs play a role. Today we'll talk to some of the influential African women in the

1:35.6

sport looking to change these views and encourage young women to take up space at the skate park.

1:41.5

And we'll hear from the Sports Association tasked with making skateboarding more inclusive

1:46.0

and find out the true cost of making the sport

1:48.9

accessible to everyone.

2:05.6

The text of the table is. The Tokyo Olympics.

2:12.0

The first time skateboarding had been part of the Olympic Games, thrusting it onto the world stage.

...

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