Tokyo Olympics: Skateboarders Rune Glifberg & Dallas Oberholzer take on the teens

Rune Glifberg was a playable character in the 1999 game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

When Rune Glifberg and Dallas Oberholzer emerged on the skateboarding scene, it was a world away from the "uncool" Olympic Games.

So for many, seeing the 46-year-old pair take to the bowl in the men's park event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games may have been seen as a culture shift.

The veterans' presence was in contrast to an otherwise youthful line-up, where three of the four gold medals up for grabs were won by teenagers.

But for Denmark's Glifberg, opening the competition at the Ariake Urban Sports Park was an "absolute honour" .

South African Oberholzer said: "I never would have thought skating would take me to the Olympics. It was taboo, it was frowned upon, it was a waste of time.

"But now it's more open and for everyone, and anything goes. I'm happy where skateboarding is now. It's just going to go up, big time."

Gaming fans of a certain vintage may remember playing as Glifberg on the early edition of Tony Hawk Pro Skater back in 1999. And as Glifberg himself acknowledged: "Thirty-five years of skateboarding will take a toll on you."

Both men were keen to bring skateboarding to a new audience, albeit in the Olympics, which the Dane described as "probably one of the most uncool things" for young skaters growing up in the 1980s.

"We put on a great exhibition of skateboarding and the only thing that wasn't true to skateboarding here today was that we were competing," he said.

Even 13-year-old Sky Brown, who won bronze in the women's park competition on Wednesday, said she wants to show that skateboarding is "for everyone".

"Anyone can do skateboarding. You don't have to be of a certain height or have to be a certain age - you can do it whenever you want. You've just got to skate and go for it," she told the BBC after her podium finish.

The combined age of the podium at the women's park was 44 - two years younger than both Glifberg and Oberholzer.

"Skateboarding is always progressing. That's why we're here, to show the world skateboarding is a full spectrum of different ethnicity, sexual preferences, gender, age," Glifberg said.

Oberholzer agrees, noting some competitors are a third his age.

"Every day I'm interacting with young people and it's cool because we skate together and age doesn't matter," he said. "It's just about what you got, what you bring to the table.

"There's no pressure for me, I'll just show up and represent the old dogs."

Oberholzer said the pair have nothing more to prove in their sport and that Paris 2024 may be a step too far for their generation of skaters.

"I don't think ever again there will be guys in their 40s. I think you'll be lucky to make it here in your 30s in the future. Rune and I are happy to represent the older generation and make sure skating is remembered as a mixed bag of misfits," he said.

Glifberg now expects to see "a little divide in skateboarding in the future" as some focus more on "competing at the Olympics and things like that".

He added: "But we're still going to have people from all sorts of life out there skateboarding in the street, skinning their knees, blood running down their arms, battling security guards and jumping downstairs and doing what we do."

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