World Skate’s Olympic Solidarity-funded Development Scholarship Programme has delivered its first large project of the LA28 Olympic cycle, in the form of an international hybrid skateboard training camp at the vast Woodward East action sports facility in Pennsylvania, USA.
After carefully considering over three hundred and fifty applications from eighty-nine nations, a total of sixteen skateboarders, seven coaches and five judges from sixteen different countries converged on the camp, having been accepted onto the programme which will run all the way through to LA28.
Overseen by World Skate’s Head Of Development James Karageorgiou, the week-long camp brought together the experience of experts in their respective fields such as Neal Mims, Martin Karas, Amber Edmondson, Kael Hill and Chloe Bernard to provide area-specific mentorships to participants from Ghana, Indonesia, Mozambique, Zambia, Hungary, Morocco, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Botswana, Senegal, Uganda, Bulgaria, Venezuela, Hong Kong and Gabon.
The camp concluded by pulling all the strands of talent development together in a simulated contest environment which allowed everyone involved to put their new-found insights and expertise into practice in an environment to which everyone who wants to progress must become accustomed.
The Scholarship Programme- of which the Woodward East camp is only the first step- forms part of World Skate’s wider skateboard development strategy, which aims to grow skateboarding internationally through educational and support opportunities.
Formed by the expansion of Paris-cycle Youth Athlete Development (YAD) and Women In Sport High Performance (WISH) Pathway initiatives into a wider scholarship initiative, our Development Scholarship Programme will not only include more of these immersive training stays, but select competition cost off-sets and performance support, regular online network collaborations plus vocational modules and courses like our Coach Education Accreditation System (CEAS) and ISJC Judging programmes.
Meet the skateboarders involved in this pioneering project through our short film from Woodward above- and follow their progress here, as Olympic Solidarity makes dreams come true on the Road To LA28!
