Against merger, Bob Burnquist worries about skateboarding – 06/29/2023 – Sport

A little over a year before the Paris Olympic Games, Bob Burnquist, 46, is concerned about the demand from World Skate, the sport’s international entity, that the CBSK (Brazilian Skateboard Confederation) join forces with bodies from other sports with wheels.

The biggest name in Brazilian skateboarding is the author of an online petition against a possible merger of the confederation with the CBHP (Confederação Brasileira de Hockey e Patins). In a recent assembly, CBSK also refuted the idea.

“I have nothing against other sports, just in favor of skateboarding”, argues Bob à Sheet. “You’re not going to take a volleyball federation and combine it with a tennis federation and a soccer federation just because everyone uses a ball. They are completely different things.”

The discussion goes beyond the particularities of each sport. She reopens a controversy that seemed resolved during the cycle leading up to the Tokyo Games, when she assumed the presidency of the sport entity responsible for three silver medals for the country, won by Rayssa Leal, Kelvin Hoefler and Pedro Barros.

The position “wasn’t a childhood dream”, recalls Burnquist, but rather a way of uniting the community in the search for recognition of CBSK as the official skateboarding entity in the country —until then, the skating confederation would be responsible for take Brazilians to Japan.

Shortly after taking the post, at a time when skaters were threatening to boycott the Games, the carioca got recognition and direct affiliation with the COB (Brazilian Olympic Committee), which in practice also means receiving, without intermediaries, the public funds obtained with part from the collection of federal lotteries.

“That’s why I’m in favor of people fighting for control of what’s ours, even if it affects the [participação na] Olympics,” says Bob.

Earlier this year, however, World Skate again issued an order requiring the merger of skateboarding administration with bodies from other wheeled disciplines. Currently, the entity maintains under its control categories such as skates and hockey.

The date set as the deadline for the merger is December. According to the World Skate statute, if the country does not comply with the requirement, the international body itself will determine who will be the entity that will represent the modality, something rejected by the sport community.

“The solution is to keep the way it was in this first Olympics, which is for CBSK to direct and organize the skate events, not to join anyone else, not to share resources”, defends Bob Burnquist.

World Skate’s impositions were also the target of criticism from the current president of CBKS, Eduardo Musa. Public statements by the leader led the organization to suspend him from international events until November 2025.

Musa expected support from the COB, as he said in an interview with Sheetbut instead, the committee also suspended him, pointing out that he complied with the decision of the international federation of the modality.

According to CBSK, despite the punishment, the entity continues to act normally, as the suspension only applies to the manager’s institutional relationship with World Skate.

Skateboarding as a tool for social transformation

Although the state of Brazilian Olympic skating is a concern for Bob Burnquist, he doesn’t let it take up all his time. Mainly because he dedicates himself more and more to social projects.

He believes that every young mind needs a passion. “Without that, you’re at the mercy…”, he says. The carioca who spent most of his childhood in São Paulo was skateboarding. “Who took me off paths that I would probably have walked without him.”

In the 1990s, at a time when the modality was much more marginalized in Brazil than it is today, he himself played a decisive role in changing the trajectory of the sport in the country, with feats that increased the popularization of the practice and earned him international recognition.

Among his achievements are ten world titles and 30 medals in the X Games, an extreme sports competition in which he participated uninterruptedly from 1995 to 2015, leaving after 14 gold medals, 8 silver and 8 bronze.

“Skateboarding has given me so much”, he acknowledges, when asked about what led him to develop social projects through the sport. “This also came after I matured after passing through the confederation itself, when I had an understanding of management and how things work.”

His time at the entity was short, less than two years, from October 2017 to June 2019, but it later led him to create an institute that combines skateboarding with educational actions. Initially, the project got its name. Afterwards, it was renamed “Skate Cuida”.

“To help people you don’t need an institute, you need to have the will to help. But I, at the time, knew that with the institute I would be able to reach more people”, he says. “My desire is to pass on this joy that skateboarding brings me and use it as a tool with the aim of forming a citizen skater.”

Founded in 2020, this year the project launched the Imagine Skate Tour initiative, an itinerant competition that combines sport with cultural and educational activities.

Conceived by Bob and sponsored by Banco do Brasil, the event has already taken place in Niterói, São Paulo and Brasília —in the capital of São Paulo, it marked the inauguration of a “half pipe” track (U-shaped ramp) at the Tietê Sports Center, earlier this month.

“I grew up here, and the last high-end, quality vert track was Ultra Skate Park back in the 80s. Late 80s, early 90s. But it was a private track, now we have a public one. .”

Although the “half pipe” is not on the Olympic program —there are “street” and “park” disputes at the Games, Bob believes that investments in this type of equipment should increase, in the wake of the success that the Brazilians had in Tokyo.

“I also believe that there is a vacuum and a space for us to return to having more cultural events in skateboarding.”