Skateboarding made its Olympic debut in the Covid-reduced Games of Tokyo three years ago, with teenager Sky Brown making headlines for winning a bronze medal for Team GB.

But with the 2024 Olympics in a European timezone, and with fans back in the venues and the world having moved on from the pandemic, skateboarding has an opportunity like never before to grow interest and participation.

The man trying to orchestrate and manage that is James Hope-Gill, the former chief executive of Sheffield and Hallamshire FA, who took the reins of the fledgling GB Skateboarding in 2014 and has steadily been developing a framework and a talent pathway for the sport.

Face of the sport: Sky Brown in action in last year's world championships. Still only 15, she is already an Olympic medallist for Team GB and could be one of the stars of the Paris Games this summer (Picture: Francois Nel/Getty Images)

“I think the IOC back in around 2012 became very aware that the global TV audience was aging,” says Hope-Gill ahead of an Olympics that will see skateboarding, breakdancing, BMX, sport climbing and surfing take their place alongside the traditional sports of athletics, cycling and swimming.

“They had to make decisions around how do we make the Olympic Games more relevant to a bigger population? They’ve looked at the youth centred sports to try and bring new eyes – and it’s been great for us.

“The youth of today want to see really exciting stuff in their digital content, and according to World Skate skateboarding was the most digitally-engaged sport in Tokyo. So maybe not the most watched on TV, but the most digitally-engaged with. That tends to be the youth, and that’s how youth consume their content, digitally and in small segments.

“So this is absolutely a huge opportunity for our sport. The fact it’s in Paris, similar time zone, means it’s going to give people in the UK a fantastic opportunity to watch skateboarding and the sports that are new. It’s really exciting.”

Britain's Sky Brown reacts after winning bronze in the women's park final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Sports Park Skateboarding in Tokyo on August 04, 2021. (Picture: LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)

When it was first announced in 2016 that skateboarding would be added to the programme for Tokyo, there was very little structure in place in Great Britain.

Hope-Gill lobbied to get £167,000 in funding for the four-year cycle.

By the time Tokyo came around the organisation still only employed three members of staff. “We had five elite skaters,” continues Hope-Gill. “We had two qualify for the Olympics and then Sky went on to win bronze.”

Brown’s achievement was transformational. When he next went to UK Sport for funding, Hope-Gill received £1.6m for the Paris cycle.

GB Skateboarding ceo James Hope-Gill of Sheffield (Picture: David Parry/PA)

“That money was to start exploring, what does it mean to be a talented skater?” he explains.

“How do you identify them? How do you support them? As well as setting up coaching, how do we support coaches, is there a competition structure that we need to put in place and how do we support them towards Paris? It has meant an increase in staff. Four years ago there was three of us, this week the 17th member of staff started.”

There are now 10 British skaters in with a chance of making it to Paris; eight in park in which Brown is still the figurehead, and two in street.

There are two events in the Olympic Qualifying Series in Shanghai in May and Budapest in June where the Olympic field will be decided.

Barring falling off her skateboard in qualifying, Brown will again be the Team GB figurehead.

“Sky Brown has been incredible for us,” says Hope-Gill, whose figures of 750,000 skateboarders in Britain is from data collected in 2019, which reflects their lack of infrastructure to prioritise updating participation data, and the fact a lot of skateboarders are not registered with clubs or associations.

“We know anecdotally there’s been a huge increase in girls and women taking part in skateboarding, Sky is a massive inspiration, her impact is almost unmeasurable.

“For the vast majority of the three quarters of a million skaters in the UK, the ethos of skateboarding is to get better within a community, not necessarily to beat someone.

“And it’s a combination of Sky and skateboarding being in the Olympics which has enabled us to have conversations with local authorities and land owners around more and better skate parks and giving credibility to skateboarding. In the past people have seen it as anti-social behaviour, on the streets, but that’s now changing, which is good, because it’s so much more than that.”

As the TV audience will see from the pictures beamed back from the Place de la Concorde in Paris this summer, it is a sport for the future.

Sky Brown and skateboarding set for huge surge in interest at Paris 2024 Olympics