Cuban skateboarders pivot for official recognition

After years in the shadows, with neither means nor official recognition, Cuban skateboarders are hoping that their sport will finally be accepted at home when it becomes an Olympic event in Tokyo next year.

"In 2020, skateboard is going to the Olympics in Japan and that is motivating us to find ways to improve and perhaps it will encourage the government to take a little more interest in us," says 28-year-old Ariel Gomez, who trains in the homemade skatepark of Ciudad Libertad, in the west of Havana.

It is here that Gomez regularly helps learner skateboarders with the objective that "this sport grows in Cuba".

There are hundreds of skateboard devotees in Cuba but officially the sport doesn't exist on the island -- there is no federation, no trainers, no dedicated spaces to practice.

That makes it impossible for Cuban skateboarders to take part in qualifying events for Tokyo 2020, some of which will be in Los Angeles from July 23 to 28.

"We have tried many times to talk with the government, to include us in INDER (the National Institute of Sport, Physical Education and Recreation) to see if they will give us a space but they never wanted to," says Gomez.

-- Gifts from abroad --
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"For the wheels we had to be a bit inventive, work out how you could fashion them from, say, the blades of a Russian food mixer."
-- Olympic dream --
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"We found this area abandoned, filled with rubbish," says Ariel. "We cleaned it up and started to build our own skateboard park."
"They arrest us, take us to the police station and fine us."