Cebu's Pride: Olympic Skateboarder Margielyn Didal on Her Incredible Journey | Prestige Online

When the Olympics embraced skateboarding as a sporting discipline, Filipino professional skateboarder Margielyn Didal led the charge in transforming how her country perceived not just her greatest passion, but also her community.

For the first time in the history of the games, the International Olympic Committee decided to feature skateboarding as a sport for Tokyo 2020, a decision that secured a page in the history books for Filipino professional skateboarder Margielyn Didal.

Like many sports recently embraced by the Olympics, skateboarding was added as an official discipline at the Asian Games in 2018 as a kind of test run – and at the age of 19, Didal took home the gold medal on her first attempt, six years after she first stepped on to a board.

“I still can’t believe I won gold there,” she tells me with a grin. “The whole team was there with me and joking about me winning before my runs. I didn’t know what to think or expect. We were all just hyping each other up and trying to enjoy the process. When they finally announced that I’d won gold, everyone there and back home just erupted.”

Her success at the regional level was preceded by an appearance at the X Games in Minneapolis earlier that year, where Didal was the first Filipino to represent her country in skateboarding at the event. She repeated that record in 2021 at the Tokyo Olympics, where she placed seventh among the world’s top 22 contestants.

While her achievements may be impressive, it’s where she’s come from that makes her story extraordinary. Born and raised in the Philippines, Didal’s humble beginnings saw her selling street food alongside her mother in Cebu near a university campus, where students gathered after class with their skateboards. Transfixed by every jump, flip and kick, the then 12-year-old Didal quickly gained an interest in the hobby. But with no money to spend on a skateboard, she began her career by asking if she could borrow one from a student, until eventually one of them gave her one.

Now with a board under her feet, Didal began honing her abilities, not because she wanted to make a career out of it, but because she simply loved it. “Wanting to become professional was definitely something that grew on me over time,” she tells me. “At first, I just thought skateboarding looked super fun and cool, doing ollies down the stairs or grinding on rails. It was just a hobby at the beginning, but I ended up enjoying it so much that I joined several skateboarding competitions in my hometown. I didn’t even practice to win them – I just wanted to skate them because it was so much fun! Eventually, I won a few competitions and started earning money, and that’s when I thought maybe I could make a career out of it.”

Understandably, when Didal found herself at the Olympics, the experience was more than surreal. For her, it wasn’t just a testament to the hard work she and her team had put in over the years, but proof that the Philippines has a rightful place in the sport.

“Going to Tokyo was huge, and for me to represent my country at the first-ever skateboarding event in the Olympics – I’m just lost for words,” she says. “It was also a big deal to show the world that the Philippines can produce great skateboarders, despite not having the right facilities and infrastructure. Where I grew up, we all just learned how to skate on the street. We didn’t have any fancy parks, but we made the most out of what we had.”

Fortunately for Didal and coming generations of skateboarders, her home country is gradually changing its perception on the sport and is now devoting more resources to supporting it. With backing from the government and a sponsorship from Red Bull, training facilities are being built, and any negativity around skateboarding is slowly fading.

“Back then, people looked down on skateboarders because we were out on the streets, all sweaty and covered in tattoos,” Didal recounts. “Malls wouldn’t let us in if we had our skateboards with us. But things started changing when they announced that skateboarding would be recognised as an Olympic sport. That changed everything.”

“Now the government and the people take it way more seriously,” her trainer and long-time friend Dani Bautista adds. “There are a lot more investors who are building skateboarding facilities and supporting us financially to represent the Philippines and compete globally. Fewer parents have that preconception of seeing skateboarding in a negative light, and more kids are being encouraged to pursue it if it’s their passion. The Olympics and Margie really put skateboarding in a more positive light.”

To win gold medals and qualify for the Olympics requires talent, tenacity and effort, but to change life for the better for an entire community? That takes someone like Didal, a trailblazer and inspiration in every sense.

The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.

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