Photo Credit: Courtesy of Jennifer Bell & David Whittaker
Do the terms “airwalk grab,” “fakie” or “kickflip” mean anything to you? A few years ago, I would have thought they were from a foreign language. Now, with a little experience working with teenagers at the city skate park, I discovered these are maneuvers performed by millions of skateboarders throughout the world.
The city of Painesville in Ohio hosts an annual skate-park series called The P-Games, which is open to skateboarders, bikers and roller bladers, ages 12 and up. There are four rounds of competition on the second Saturday in June, July and August. The fourth and final round in September is called the P-Games Finale.
Competitors earn points for their performances in each monthly round. After the Finale, whoever has the most points in that age bracket and category wins a P-Games trophy. The cost to enter is $10 per round or for all four rounds $20, and includes a P-Games T-shirt. The money raised from the games goes into a fund to improve the skate park.