Ramping It Up: How Tom Schaar Skateboarded to Olympic Success

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Tom Schaar made history performing a 1080 spin as a kid. Now, he’s an Olympic medalist pushing skateboarding’s limits. See how he got there. | SUCCESS

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A close-up shot of a skateboarder's feet on a pink skateboard at a skate park

Thirteen years ago, Tom Schaar did the unheard of: He performed the 1080 trick as a child. The video of young Schaar executing the complex triple spin in mid-air, which RedBull posted on YouTube, has over 3 million views.

Since then, the professional skateboarder has won the silver medal in Men’s Park at the Paris Olympics, as well as countless medals from the X Games. Over the past decade, he’s grown exponentially and continues to push the limits of his sport.

As a younger brother, 3-year-old Schaar was quick to copy everything his older brother did, including learning to skateboard on their neighbor’s old halfpipe. His brother had expressed interest first, and Schaar followed suit.

But what began as a fun activity soon turned into a real passion. He stuck with skateboarding through middle school, then made the jump into professional skateboarding when he received a random invite to debut at the LA X Games at age 12.

“I didn’t do that well actually, in it,” he recalls. “I think I did pretty bad[ly], but I was just very excited to be there and very lucky to be able to still be a part of the X Games.”

Although his first professional performance wasn’t a standout, he later became the youngest skateboarder to successfully land a 1080 in the Asia X Games. From there, his success amplified.

The California native has now mastered a wide range of skateboarding skills, such as Big Air—where skaters perform high-intensity air tricks after launching from a steep ramp—and vert skateboarding, which involves using vertical surfaces like ramps and halfpipes. Schaar also explored park skateboarding, where skaters perform a variety of tricks on railpipes, halfpipes and bowls, using the multi-purpose skate bowl arena.

While he was shredding it at the X Games, Schaar also gained notable titles in other competitions. For instance, he became the youngest champion of the Dew Tour and Vans Pool Party. His skills and reputation quickly turned him into a prodigy in the skateboarding world.

After reaching these new heights, the bar had no doubt risen—so Schaar set his sights on the Olympics.

However, the skateboarder barely made it into the competition. “I honestly didn’t really process it for like, the first couple weeks, because I feel like the whole process of getting to the Olympics was actually a lot harder than competing in the Olympics,” he says. “Just because there’s a lot of really good skaters, [they have to] narrow it down to, you know, just a finite group of people. So just going through the qualifying process was honestly a lot more stressful than getting to the Olympics.”

Even as a top contender, Schaar had his reservations about performing at the Paris Olympics. Doing so required months of rigorous practice to prepare for the daunting competition. “It was a lot,” he adds. “I mean, it was every day, more or less every day, for like, [a] few hours, just staying and working on… exactly what tricks I wanted or thought I was going to be doing, and just coming up with different weird combinations…. It was just a lot of skating.”

But his dedication paid off. Schaar scored high in the competition after performing an array of tricks, including a tailgrab, kick flip, backside air and several more.

Schaar credits much of his success to his support system: his family and one key mentor—legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk. “He’s helped me out a lot,” Schaar says. “It’s been a lot of… stressful moments that I’ve had, and he’s kind of just told me that, you know, ‘There’s a million a contest that you can do,’ and just to have fun and try and take it all in.”

Although Schaar skateboards competitively, he says there’s always positive energy in the skating community. “I mean, a lot of people that I look up to are other people that I compete against…. We all grew up skating together,” he says. “It’s kind of like this big family that we’ve kind of built, and we really all feed off each other a lot.”

Now, after taking a well-deserved break, he’s back in training mode and collaborating with his brand sponsorships—Birdhouse, Monster Energy and New Balance—to film new skate videos. Not many people get to professionally skate and make a living off of it, but Schaar is undoubtedly one of the lucky few.

Photo by Lazy_Bear/Shutterstock.com

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