Andy Macdonald will participate at Paris 2024. GETTY IMAGES

They say age is just a number, and that is certainly the case for American-born skateboarder Andy Macdonald, who will compete for Team GB at the Paris 2024 Olympics and take on participants younger than his children.

Covid certainly had a massive impact on everybody across the globe when the pandemic came to light in 2020, disrupting life in general, and none more so than Massachusetts-born Macdonald, who opted to go down a new career path, skateboarding. His vision was to participate in the Olympics in the French capital.

A few obstacles, however, were put in Macdonald's way, the first being to obtain a British passport, and the second was to ensure qualification for the Games against opponents who are younger than his children, and he could come up against the likes of Sky Brown, should she recover in time from a dislocated shoulder. He qualifies for GB through his dad, who was born in Luton but moved to the United States at a young age.

“When I got this idea, I had to call my dad to get his birth certificate and he was like ‘why do you want a British passport?’ And I said this is the only way this crazy idea might work," he told English newspaper i in an exclusive interview.


Andy Macdonald is relishing the opportunity to participate at Paris 2024. GETTY IMAGES
Andy Macdonald is relishing the opportunity to participate at Paris 2024. GETTY IMAGES

“I wasn’t making as much money from skateboarding. Once the pandemic hit, sponsors and events, there was nothing, no demos or competitions to go to. So I got this crazy idea of qualifying for the British national team. So thanks to Team GB and the national lottery they funded this journey to the Olympics.

“Now I am back at it, sponsors are supporting me again. I am going straight from Paris to demos in Toronto, Canada. I am still making a living skateboarding at 51 years old. I could show you videos of me at 31 and people asking me ‘how long can you do this’ and I am like ‘maybe I can milk it until I am 35’. But I am still here.”

Famous skateboarder Tony Hawk, is a good friend of Macdonald, and even dubbed his skating idea "crazy", but Macdonald stuck to his guns and the hard work of training is now paying off. “We skate together quite a bit and when I told him about this idea, he was like ‘you’re crazy, but yeah, sure’” Macdonald continued. 





He made it to the Olympics in June after a stellar qualifying campaign in Budapest, and has never even considered hanging up his skateboard for good. He told i, “That’s the part that people don’t understand. They hear of skateboarders in their fifties and picture a guy just showing up and all the kids at the skatepark saying ‘who is this old guy?’ But if you never stop, when they showed up, you were there already.”

Macdonald’s preferred discipline is vert ramps, involving 14-foot-high half-pipes for airs and spins, but Olympic park skateboarding, done in smaller, less forgiving bowls, poses a challenge for him as new tricks become harder to master in his sixth decade of life.

“There is a risk-reward thing when it comes to age,” Macdonald continued. “When you’re little and you’re made of rubber you just go for it, and see what happens. If you slam you just bounce right up. 


The 51-year-old will go up against opponents younger than his children. GETTY IMAGES
The 51-year-old will go up against opponents younger than his children. GETTY IMAGES

“As you get older, particularly as a 50-year-old, you want to do this new trick, but I don’t want to slam because I want to skate next week too. So you have to balance that. It takes longer [to learn new tricks] because you’re less willing to throw it down and see what happens. You want it to be perfect. You want it to be just right before you put the board down. Then if you slam it is kind of a surprise.

“For me it takes more motivation. When I was younger, I would just throw it down on a regular training day on the ramp at the warehouse, with three of us skating. Now the bigger high-risk tricks, like a 720 (two rotations in the air) – I did one recently and became the oldest skater to do a 720, but it was at a ‘legends’ demo and there were 3,000 people cheering me on.

“I knew I could do it, but it needed extra motivation. I did it first try, I was psyched, but before that I hadn’t done it in almost a year because I was not willing to take that risk," he concluded to i.

Macdonald will be cheered on by his wife and children when he competes in the bowl on Wednesday. When asked if his kids have taken up skateboarding like their father, he said, "No, of course not. You don't want to do what your dad does! My 18-year-old son is a distance runner, my 14-year-old is a gymnast, and my eight-year-old rides horses."