At 4 years old.
This is the age at which Aurélien Giraud discovered and started skateboarding at the Gerland skatepark, in his hometown of Lyon.
Considered one of the biggest French stars in the discipline, 19 years later, in Tokyo, he was preparing to participate in the first Olympic skateboard competition.
“When I started, it was really impressive to see all the great skaters. I wanted to be like them,” recalls Aurélien Giraud.
"My dad was happy to see me thrive in this sport, but my mum was scared. She was buying me every protection imaginable. Others called me 'Robocop'," he laughs.
When his father died, Aurélien was only 6 years old.
His mother, however, continues to take him to the skatepark.
It was at the same time that Régis Caillol, the manager of Gerland, took him under his wing and offered him a board adapted to his small size.
A phenomenon of precocity, he stood out during his first competition, the V7 teenage tour.
“I loved skateboarding so much that I did it all the time,” he recalls.
"I didn't eat, I drank very little. One day, I was skateboarding eight hours in a row, I put on a stupid figure when I wasn't feeling well. My head was spinning, my head banged and I woke up at home without remembering anything. I think I had a head injury. "
Nothing to disgust the Lyonnais of his favorite sport: "Falls are part of skateboarding."
Tampa Am, the turning point
Supported very early on by the Lyon specialist store Wall Street, he signed a first major contract with Red Bull at the age of 13. But four years later, when he won the famous Tampa Am amateur tournament, his career took on a new dimension. Aurélien Giraud becomes a professional skateboarder. He who grew up admiring Ryan Sheckler is now his colleague at the skate brand Plan B.
One year after their postponement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics will finally open on July 23.
Dozens of athletes will discover this great festival of sport in a very particular context linked to drastic health restrictions.
France 24 went to meet several of them who will represent the new disciplines of these unique Olympic Games: surfing, skateboarding, climbing, karate and 3x3 basketball.
>> 1/3: Anouck Jaubert: "It's a big step for climbing"
>> 2/3: Tokyo-2021: for karateka Steven Da Costa, "the health context takes away the joy of the Olympics"
>> 3/3: From skateparks in Lyon to the Tokyo Olympics, prodigy Aurélien Giraud dreams of gold
"I never imagined that my board would take me so far. It's amazing to make a living on a skateboard traveling all over the world," he explains, as he now performs a series of performances, contracts, photo shoots and filming.
"Aurélien, he has a pretty incredible board feel. At home, it's innate while others work on him for a long time," explains his manager, Jérémie Grynblat.
"Another of his talents is that when he pulls a trick for the first time, he manages to reproduce it for a long time. It goes into his head," he continues.
And to continue: "He also has a 'pop', an impressive explosiveness and he is able to go very high."
"In France, it can be hard to make a living from skateboarding but I'm lucky to have a large community that follows me and to win competitions. Of course, if I had been in the United States, it would have been certainly was easier. "
The American dream
The sport's original homeland, the United States, and more specifically California, is considered a "skateboard mecca".
Aurélien Giraud has fond memories of his first trip across the Atlantic.
"I remember the first time I discovered the United States, it was like a dream. I was with Vincent Matheron [his friend and teammate of the French skate team, Editor's note]. I was dazzled, I looked everywhere. It was my childhood dream to skate in the USA, "he recalls.
In 2021, to prepare for the Dew Tour, he spent a month in California, with Vincent Matheron who is an expatriate there.
From now on, his short-term project is to reach the Californian promised land to live the American dream there.
"All the sponsors are there, all the legends of the sport, the best skateparks. This is where everyone is and where everything happens. This is the movement to make to move up a level", explains t -he.
A complicated marriage between Olympics and skateboarding
Ranked 6th in the world before the 2021 World Street Championships, Aurélien Giraud won his qualification for the first Olympic Games in the history of the discipline. "It's incredible to be able to compete in the first Olympic skate games and to be able to represent your country. It's a source of pride and at the same time a source of stress. We will try to bring back the gold medal", wants to believe the young man.
If Aurélien Giraud is delighted to see his sport at the Olympics, the entire skateboarding community is not unanimous. In 2016, when skateboarding was announced among the new Olympic disciplines from Tokyo, along with surfing, rock climbing, karate and baseball / softball, some pro skateboarders protested against the idea, defending the idea. libertarian ideal of their discipline, hardly compatible according to them with the Olympic straitjacket.
"Those who are against the Olympics are those who were already anti-competition. For them, skateboarding is above all in the street", explains the young man. "Skateboarding can take a real turn. I hope that will make people want to do it but, at the same time, people shouldn't take up skating to do the Olympics. Skateboarding, it is not that at the base and it would be a shame to limit it to that ", he concedes.
"I think it's good news for skateboarding. We're going to have a lot more kids who will discover this discipline and get interested in it. If there is an interest, we will have more practitioners so more skateparks, therefore more recognition and we will be taken less lightly at the institutional level, "notes manager Jérémie Grynblat.
"It's also interesting on a business level, we're not going to hide it. If we sell more boards, skate shops will do better."
"However, I fully understand those who are afraid that skateboarding will lose its soul. They are purists, attached to the notion of freedom around the sport and who do not want people who have nothing to do with the discipline. appropriate it for financial purposes, "he continues.
"Now why did the IOC add skateboarding [to the Olympic program]? It is to make money by selling TV rights. Young people today prefer to watch skate rather than 400m", adds Aurélien Giraud's manager. "We are fighting to ensure that the right people are at the heart of this Olympic project. If we were to find ourselves only with people outside skateboarding, we are likely to slam the door. These Olympics can turn into a huge masquerade and not work as expected. But in that case, we can at least say that [...] we gave [Olympic skate] a chance. "
And for the manager, Aurélien Giraud's objective is clear: "Aurélien does not go to the Olympics to put on pearls. He wants the gold medal. Anyway, he does not know how to be satisfied with the 2nd or the 3rd place. He prefers to risk everything to win first place rather than insure for second or third place. "
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