Skateboarder Andy Macdonald says qualifying for Olympics at 50 ‘pretty surreal’

Fifty-year-old skateboard superstar Andy Macdonald has described the “surreal” prospect of representing Great Britain at the Paris Olympics alongside teenage team-mates Sky Brown and Lola Tambling.

Macdonald had already won his eight prestigious X Games gold medals before Brown and Tambling were born and admitted it never crossed his mind that his illustrious career could culminate in a place on global sport’s biggest stage.

“I was part of a demonstration at the closing ceremony of the Atlanta Games in 1996 and we thought it was the closest to the Olympics that skateboarding would ever get,” Macdonald told the PA news agency.

“When I started out in the sport going to the Olympics wasn’t even a thought, but here I am, qualifying at the age of 50, and it feels pretty surreal.”

US-based Macdonald launched a late pursuit of an improbable Olympic place by virtue of his British-born father, and squeezed into the line-up for the men’s park event after reaching the semi-finals of the final qualifying event in Budapest last month.

He will become skateboarding’s oldest Olympian in Paris, joining Brown, now 15, who became the youngest ever member of Team GB at the delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 where she won a bronze medal, and 16-year-old Tambling in a three-strong British team that truly spans the age spectrum.

Macdonald, who counted a series of doubles titles alongside the great Tony Hawk among his X Games titles, said teaming up with Brown and Tambling is helping him to hold back time – albeit with an increasing number of bumps and bruises along the way.

“When you do go down it takes longer to jump back up, and as you get older you get more timid and scared of those big commitment tricks,” added Brown.

“But I don’t do any cross-training or strength and conditioning. I just skateboard, and that’s all that I’ve done since I was 12 years old.

“When you’re a 50-year-old skateboarder the chances are you are going to be skating with younger kids anyway. The energy I’m getting from my team-mates, trying to keep up with them, it’s literally my fountain of youth.”