Yndiara Asp embraces the fight for equal pay in skateboarding – 08/31/2023 – Sport
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Yndiara Asp, 25, gave an interview to Sheet with a white T-shirt. In the print, the drawing of a person riding a skateboard. “It could be a boy or a girl because it’s just a little doll with long hair,” he described.
The way in which the woman from Santa Catarina presents herself is not a random choice. It also represents a role she has taken on within the skateboarding community, in raising her voice for equality in the sport’s awards.
Finalist in the skate park competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games and, currently, the second best-placed Brazilian in the world ranking of the modality —by which the athletes classified for the Paris Games, in 2024—, Yndi, as she is known, will be selected. raised the debate about sexism in the skateboarding world.
It was from her father that she got the first “wheelie toy”, a cause for concern for her mother, who, although she didn’t like to see her daughter getting hurt, never stopped her passion.
“From the moment I fell in love with this toy, I felt like I could break barriers for myself and society in general,” said Yndi. “I didn’t start walking around seeing a girl myself.”
For years, the lack of representation in skateboarding formed a community composed mostly of men, in a scenario of inequality exposed, above all, in the modality’s awards.
In 2018, when she turned professional, the Santa Catarina native was at the center of a controversy that started a movement to change that.
That year, the photo of the two champions of the Oi Park Jam event, in Itajaí, Santa Catarina, went viral on the internet. The image aroused great interest for showing the difference in the prizes received by Yndi and Pedro Barros: R$ 5,000 and R$ 17,000, respectively.
“When they posted the photo, people started to shoot it on Instagram”, remembers Yndi. “It reached a repercussion outside of skateboarding. Many women came to defend me, defend women’s skateboarding and question the reason for the difference. It became a movement.”
At the time, the organization argued that the men’s competition brought together the 24 best skaters of the time, while the women’s competition had ten girls, three of them professionals.
The justification was not enough to stop the wave of criticism, or the chaos, as the woman from Santa Catarina defined it. “It was really chaos, but that’s when you see that chaos is necessary for change.”
When there is someone to look at, we know where we can go and go further. When you don’t have it, it’s empty, full of doubts. I feel very happy to be able to guide and inspire other girls
The noise echoed to the United States, specifically to California, the cradle of world skateboarding. Yndi is proud to remember that, after the event in Brazil, some of the main competitions in the world started to have equal prizes.
“Shortly after that tournament here, there would be a stage of the most classic championship in the United States until then, the Girls Combi Pool Classic, and they announced that there would be an equalization of the prizes.”
Olympic medal dream
Yndiara’s fight for equality in the prize money does not minimize her fight for a good performance on training wheels. Ranked eighth in the park competition at the Tokyo Olympics, she dreams of seeking results that earn her a medal at the Paris Games.
“Since 2016, I’ve always managed to reach the finals of the main tournaments, the Worlds, but I’m still looking for the podium,” he said.
The athlete is in Rome, where she has been training before the World Park competition, in the Italian capital, from October 1st to 8th. She is ninth in the world ranking of the modality, which is led by the British Sky Brown and has the Brazilian Raicca Ventura in sixth place.
Yndi believes he will arrive in a better condition for the next Olympic edition, mainly due to the volume of training. Although the Olympic cycle is shorter, three years – due to the fact that the Tokyo Games were held in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic – this time she did not suffer from injuries.
“It was three more fruitful years. Before Tokyo, I had injuries in the hip, in the ankle and in the elbow”, recalled the skater, now also more experienced.
“When we see an Olympics from the outside, we see the athletes as heroes. But, when we are in the Olympic Village, we understand that everyone is people like us, but that they are people who believe and fight in the face of adversity .”
“Now I carry that with me too.”
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