Skateboarding: Charlotte Hym and Vincent Milou on their way to Paris 2024?

Qualifying event for the Olympic Games Paris 2024

For the skaters of the French national team, the road to Paris 2024 runs through the United Arab Emirates! It was on the shores of the Persian Gulf that the World Championships in this specialty kicked off on January 29, the first event of the season. The city of Sharjah will be hosting the two Olympic events⁽¹⁾ from January 29 to February 5 for the street skateboarding competition, and from February 5 to 12 for the park skateboarding competition. These championships are extremely important for skateboarders given their status as a qualifying event for the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Skateboarding was included in the Tokyo Games with a view of promoting a discipline practiced all over the world and of attracting a younger audience. The event made a considerable impact and attracted a lot of public attention and, what is more, the athletes appreciated their sport’s new status. Building on this successful debut, the Olympic Games Paris 2024 will be a crucial moment not only for the skaters’ discipline but also for their careers. A total of 88 athletes will be taking part in the competition. In its capacity as the host country, France will have four quota places, one for women and one for men in each of the events. The other athletes will be able to qualify individually within the limit of twelve quota places per nation.

Rendezvous: Place de la Concorde

For these World Championships, the French national team is comprised of nine athletes including Charlotte Hym and Vincent Milou, supported respectively by the Caisse d'Epargne Ile-de-France and BPCE insurance. Vincent Milou, 26, came very close to winning a place on the podium in Tokyo (finishing in 4^th place) and consequently offers France a good chance of winning a medal in Paris, all the more so considering the series of good results he’s chalked up in recent months. This athlete from the Landes region in southwest France, the reigning European street skateboarding champion, took 6^th place in the World Cup in Rome and came 2^nd in the Seattle stage of the Street League, the world street skateboarding circuit, and finished 5^th in the final of this competition. He also won the silver medal last summer at the X Games. Vincent approaches these championships highly motivated to go out and skate! 

Charlotte Hym shares the same commitment. After pursuing for many years her studies and high-level skateboarding simultaneously, she can now devote herself entirely to her sport. In October 2019, Charlotte, 30, submitted her doctoral thesis entitled: “Impact of maternal factors on newborns’ quadrupedal motricity.” This PhD in neuroscience, who finished 17^th in Tokyo, is now fully focused on skateboarding with a view to competing in the Paris Olympics under the best possible conditions, all the more so as the games will be held at her very doorstep – on, rather, on her very flagstones! – considering that this Parisienne’s favorite spots happen to be the esplanade in front of Les Halles in central Paris, the Place de la Republic or the space in front of the Bastille... In 2024, the world’s foremost male and female skateboarders will be competing on another Parisian esplanade where’s it’s currently impossible for Charlotte to train but which will definitely be one of the Games more spectacular venues considering that the skateboarding events will be held… on Place de la Concorde!

⁽¹⁾ The street skateboarding event is held in a setting designed to reproduce an urban environment with obstacles such as staircases, ramps, etc. The skaters are graded on the five tricks performed in 45 seconds but also on their control of the board during their two runs. 

The park skateboarding event takes place in a stadium with bowls and curves where skaters gain enough momentum to complete jumps and figures. 

“We share the same flame”