Daniel Hawes has the need for speed. The 21-year-old skateboarder has been downhill speed skating for the past two years and is now ready to pit his skills against the best in the world.
Next week he will head off to a competition in the Blue Mountains, leading up to the world titles in Bathurst later this year.
And that’s not his only goal.
He hopes to interest skateboarders in doing a fund-raising lap of the island and believes the completion of the skate park in Penneshaw will “bring skateboarders out of the woodwork”.
The obvious physical risks of skateboarding downhill at speeds up to 100km/h are not the only risks involved with this relatively new sport, which has a strong following in South Africa, Canada and the US.
The sport is generally illegal on public roadways. There are very few roads where Daniel can practise his skills on Kangaroo Island and popular practice sites in the Adelaide Hills have been clamped down on by police.
The sport’s dubious legal status and some negative press it has generated means it has not yet attracted many sponsors or even much prize money and short-boarders pay their own way, doing it for love.
Daniel has sustained a broken elbow, two sprained ankles and several concussions in the pursuit of his sport, but says it’s not really an extreme sport.
“Those guys who race downhill on a pair of roller blades, now that’s extreme,” he says.
Email a friend