"If I show up they will all stop skating"

Interview by Thomas Lindemann / Welt Online

Twelve times Skateboard World Champion and skateboarding legend Tony Hawk visits the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany to present his new game and to show some stunning skate tricks at the half pipe. With WELT ONLINE he talks about the profile of the skateboarding scene and his desire to sometimes just skate in peace like everybody else.

He came to the Leipzig Games Convention to present his new game "Tony Hawk´s Proving Ground". Hawk appears to the interview wearing a loose gray sweater and looks tired. Yesterday he was in France, tomorrow he has to be in New York. At his ring finger he wears a bling-bling diamond ring on the middle finger he´s got an "L" tattoo, for his wife. Thomas Lindemann spoke with the icon of all relaxed boys who don´t wanna grow up.

WELT ONLINE: You stopped skating professionally in 1999 and now take care of your video games, even more. How strong are you really involved? You are a skateboarder not a games developer.

Tony Hawk: I talk with the developers at Neversoft a lot. I make suggestions for tricks that could be built in. Or skate spots. Or challenges that should be taken. It became a lot easier during the years. Now, they really got a clue about skateboarding. In the beginning I had to explain everything to them.

WELT ONLINE: Skaters came up in the eighties and then more or less disappeared from the media. Now, they are back, again, all of a sudden. Why? Is skateboarding not kinda over and done with?

Hawk: You had those cycles. Sometimes skating was popular and then sometimes it wasn´t. That´s changed now. There are so many fans and a basis that is so solid, nowadays we know it is going to stay. Kids and the parents accept it. It really became a normal sport.

WELT ONLINE: In your new game one is quite free to ride the area and do tricks at any obstacle, like a car, for example. You can also bump into pedestrians. Are Skaters really bad guys?

Hawk: We just wanted to build in everything that actually exists on the streets. You can crash into a person or even crash into another skater. But you have to be careful if you run into other people they will start chasing after you to get you. So that´s only the reality which we are trying to reproduce.

WELT ONLINE: Fans say you are a legend. How does it feel to wake up like that, every morning?

Hawk: Well, when waking up I actually think about other things. It is an honor. But it´s big pressure, also. Sometimes I go to a common skate park just to skate a little bit. Like every Skateboarder does every once in a while. But if I show up they will all stop skating and just watch me. That´s real pressure. Not always I am in the perfect state of condition. If I am having a bad day everybody thinks: this guy can´t do anything, anyway. But I am not so far away, or so, I stay close to the fans not like a star you can never reach. I am a skater. Like the others.

WELT ONLINE: There are ten Tony-Hawk-Skateboard-Games, already. Why should one buy the new one?

Hawk: It´s state of the art. But what is even more important is that you can adjust it much more individually. There are three types of skaters in the game: The career-skater who skates at contests, the hardcore-ripper who finds his way through the backyards and the streets and the creative-rider who finds spots like everywhere around. There from you can choose elements also in the way of dressing.

WELT ONLINE: Do you go out tonight? At the Games Convention there are so many parties?

Hawk: I´m on the way nonstop, since weeks. I was in Biarritz, yesterday tomorrow I will go to visit the US Open in New York. I have no time to think about that, at all.

WELT ONLINE: Do you still have time for yourself?

Hawk: Yes, every time again I take weeks off with my kids. Now, that´s also what I´m going to do for the rest of the summer.

WELT ONLINE: You have three children. Do they skate, already?

Hawk: My eldest son skates a lot. He even doesn't need my help, anymore. The small ones skate but they also swim or surf.

WELT ONLINE: One month ago there was a nasty accident at the X-Games championship. Jake Brown fell from about 15 meters back down into the half pipe, again not being injured as by a miracle. You commented that on television and were shocked. Is skateboarding dangerous?

Hawk: That really was a big unfortunate accident. The worst case imaginable for this ramp. Everything went wrong - You really can´t generalize that. Something like this normally doesn´t happen. There were people who thought that Jake was going to die. Then he got up just like that and went. That guy is just so hard.

WELT ONLINE: Ok then let´s take it this way: Wouldn´t it be better if the kids went out to go skate instead of sitting in front of the TV and playing your video game?

Hawk: The video game did a lot for the popularity of skateboarding. A lot of youngsters play my game and have fun. They love skateboarding but maybe only as spectators. Maybe they don´t even want to get on top of the board, themselves. In former times we didn´t have any fans or spectators. Nowadays this has changed. Whoever doesn´t want to get hurt leaves it alone and stays right there on the side.