Let’s talk about the first ever women’s Game of Skate contest in Greece, shall we?
Women’s skateboarding has been getting bigger and bigger over the last few years and just like in any other country, we’ve observed the greek community of girl skaters growing stronger than ever.
When Koger came up to me with the idea of hosting a game of skate contest with local skaters, I thought, Hell yeah! Contests rarely happen in Greece for a million reasons that I won’t get into now, the biggest one being our poor infrastructure. A simple Game of Skate contest was just what we needed to bring the community together again after a long two years of pandemic bullshit. What was an even better idea tho, was to host a women’s contest too, with the winners receiving the same prizes as the ones in the men’s category. Now, that’s something that we shouldn’t even need to mention, it should be obvious that both categories should be receiving equal prizes…right? Unfortunately, even if it’s 2022, that’s not the case. A lot of people assume that at this time of age people are being treated equal, but they’re not. It was only a couple of years ago that California passed Assembly Bill 467, also known as Equal Pay for Equal Play bill, a law that ensures equal treatment of athletes and rectifies gender-based pay disparities by requiring equal pay regardless of gender. This bill however, can only be applied in California, but I like to think that it’s a step towards greater equality and something that more states and countries will adopt. (Read this article to find out more about the fight a group of women put for equal pay in contest skating)
Apart from the equal prizes in our FMS Game of Skate contest, what I thought was really beautiful was how the community was brought together, especially in the finals, with both men and women cheering for the winners and anyone who participated in the games. How both finalists- Nancy and Karabelas played against each other, and how this was the first time that a contest was held with the support of all skateshops based in Athens! Big up to Koger who organised this and to everyone from the community who supported and participated. Check out the final video of our 2022 GoS contest, Nancy vs Karabelas below:
Instagram: @freemovement__sb
Facebook: @freemovementsb
