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A Inline, Skiboarding Parallel
Date: 16/03/05
By: Roussel
As some of you may or may not know, most skiboarders' summer time cross over, inline skating, has been removed from the X-Games for 2005. I doubt this will have as big of an effect on rollerblading as it did on skiboarding, but it still is a shame to have this happen to another great sport which has been in the X-Games from the very beginning I believe. Around the same time, a interview was done on EXPN.com with some "action sports experts" about the state of actions sports. Althought these "experts" didn't seem to be fond of rollerblading.
Read the interview by EXPN.com with these so called "action sports experts":
http://expn.go.com/expn/story?pageName=041210_amped04
Now read the response written by Jason Hines of Mix Ride Media, organizer for inline competitions in the X-Games:
http://expn.go.com/expn/story?pageName=050309_inline_letter01
Now with the help of phillycore from the SBOL forums we can see a great parallel to skiboarding in this edited version of the ending part of the letter:
"Now, I ask ... Why do you hate me?
You want us to go away from your world of action sports and we have gone quietly. We are out of the X Games as a competing sport (Skiboarding was removed from the roster ) and we haven't complained. Our industry has been humbled and our numbers have slipped because obese American children going snow tubing say we are lame. The skiboarders have been banned from your precious terrain parks and forced to go look elsewhere.
We have no desire to look like you; ride like you, chill with you, idolize you or even listen to the same music as you. We never did. We don't like to eat lunch with you at school, or hang with you in bars. It's not that we don't like skiers/snowboarders, or hate skiing/snowboarding, despite being hated upon. It's just that we are not skiers/snowboarders, so why should we care what is going on in your sport? We are the anti-jock, underground, "can't sell out cuz there ain't no money in it", misunderstood, non-conforming, grassroots, for the love, most under-the-radar sport in all of action sports.
We are everything skiing/snowboarding used to be, which is probably why you all feel so threatened by Skiboarding.
Do you hate me now?"
It seems that the alternitive sports of "alternitive sports" are not accepted by the mainstream.
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