18-year-old Katie Pike dreams of being the first Scottish female skater at the Paris 2024 Olympics, even if it means sacrificing her social life to skate alone in an empty park five days a week.
Before beginning her ski journey in Canberra, Australia, Pike had previously grown up and spent most of her life in Scotland.
She was raised by her Scottish mother and Australian father, and the family moved to Australia when she was 11 years old.
It wasn’t until I was 14 years oldy It was her birthday that she got her first skateboard, after being tempted by skateboarding videos online.
It was at Free Skate lessons in Canberra where she learned how to participate, and from that moment on, she fell in love with the sport.
“I like the fact that you can decide as an individual what you want to do. In team sports, you have a coach telling you what to do, whereas in skating you can do different tricks, you have different techniques. It’s great that I can choose the path,” Pike said. Which I will follow.”
By embracing her individuality and creativity at the skate park, she has also gained invaluable confidence and resilience.
“I can express my personality and style through what I do, but I also love that it helps with a lot of things in life. You fall down a lot, get back up, keep trying, and eventually succeed.”
Four years after her first visit, Pike, now 18, has made her mark overseas in British skating, with a second-place finishSecond abbreviation At the Skateboard GB Park National Championships.
Her second-place finish earned her an invitation to represent Skateboard GB at the Paris 2024 Olympic Qualifiers, and the 2023 Rome Park World Championships.
“I was really very happy [to hear the invitation news]. I was obviously very nervous because I knew the girls were great at skating, and ever since I got second place, I had that thought on my mind.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be invited, right?’ But I was still really shocked when I did it because I thought I was just a girl from Australia,” she said.
In Rome, she finished 41ststreet11 places above her British colleague, and official member of Team GB, Lily Strachan.
“I was really stoked to be there. It was unreal. I’m still in shock to be there. I was like, ‘Oh, this is an Olympic qualifier.’ I was so happy with what I did in the end.”
While snowboarding gave her the key to traveling the world and meeting new people, it wasn’t without its drawbacks.
“It can be really hard to motivate myself when a lot of my friends obviously don’t skate. They’re like, ‘Do you want to come hang out?’ Do you want to go to the coast? I can’t because I have to train.
“At the same time, I have to have a social life in skating, but I have no one to skate with, so I’ll leave my friends to skate alone. It’s very difficult.”
Pike is the only female park or street skateboarder in Canberra and is often found to have the skate park to herself.
Fellow Canberra skater, and one of Australia’s best, Ethan Copeland, is regularly found traveling the country while the older skaters are away working.
She has to travel three and a half hours to Sydney just to skate with other girls or women.
“[Male skaters sometimes say] “Oh my God, there’s a girl skating on the huge bowl.” Then walk to watch.
“And again, I like being the only girl because guys try to show me off but it doesn’t work.”
Instead of friends or a sense of community, it’s the thrill of successful landing tricks and the anticipation of endless possibilities that keeps Pike coming back to the skate park.
“Before I go to bed every night, I say, ‘Okay, what trick am I going to get? What trick am I going to try?’ Then I go to the skate park, do that, and when I get there [the trick]IM so happy.”
In the long term, Pike, who is in her final year at college, has her sights set on earning a sports scholarship to university alongside studying an education course.
But her current ambition is to become the first Scottish skater to compete in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
To qualify, Pike will have to earn points in World Skate events to climb the Olympic World Skate Ranking (OWSR) as high as possible.
Athletes will then be selected by name according to the OWSR starting on the 24thy June 2024, with 20 places available.
The next step to achieving her Olympic dream lies in Dubai where she was recently invited to represent Skateboard GB at the World Skate Tour Dubai Park 2024 competition in February.
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