Don’t really get skateboarding if I’m honest. It didn’t really happen where I grew up, maybe I’m a couple of years too old. But I know athletic prowess and determination when I see it.
And here it is in spades as Tony Hawk – if there’s a more famous skateboarder I don’t know them – refuses to allow his slightly slower reflexes (yep, happens to the best of us) to prevent him from revisiting his glory days. It was 17 years ago to the day Tony pulled off the world’s first 900 (two and a half rotations) at the X Games and for whatever reason (‘because I feel like I can’) he decides never mind the greying hair, it’s on again.
What’s striking about the film is not so much that he does it, that’s really the point, but that he won’t accept that he can’t do it. And he takes some punishment along the way. That’s one of the great things about our ability to age like no generation before – the determination to push boundaries and constantly surprise even ourselves. As Tony himself admits, ’I never thought I’d be doing this at my age’.
Watch Tony Hawk pull a 900 at age 48