From outsider to contender: The rise of US park skateboarder Tate Carew - “I really don’t have anything to lose”
There’s a notebook that Tate Carew keeps.
In it, is a record of all the tricks the park skateboarder has ever done as well as those he envisions trying to do next.
“I hate to call it a diary, but it’s definitely a diary,” the 18-year-old tells Olympics.com with a coy smile.
The book, its affirmations, and scribblings for the future are a testament not only to Carew and his commitment to his craft but also hint at the state of the men’s contest scene.
Since Tokyo 2020, the standard of competition has ratcheted up to an intensity never before seen. And if you’re a skateboarder looking to win, like Carew, it means finding ways to adapt.
“Park skating is at the highest level it's ever been at. And that's a great thing, but at the same time, you have to have a step forward on everyone,” the American explains.
“You have to make sure that you're prepared for each event. After, each contest is over, pretty much the first thing I do is I come back home and I write down a list of a few new tricks that I want to learn just so I feel confident going into the next event because, I mean, some of the kids that are coming up right now are really, really good. They're progressing really fast.”
As part of USA Skateboarding’s national team for 2023, Carew has a better understanding than most of what recent progression in park looks and feels like. He was among the first cohort to embark on the Olympic qualification journey for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
“The first round, I was stoked to be in the top 20 and maybe, like, the sixth or seventh American," he says candidly. “It was just more of, like, the experience and my parents were just very excited that I was even, like, given the opportunity to do that."
Now, he says, things have changed. He’s sure because, before our call, he admits to having looked back at old footage from the previous batch of qualifiers.
“I don't mean to bash on us, but I was watching the last, year of qualifying for Tokyo, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, this is pretty much none of this stuff would get you in the top 44 anymore.
“There's no more like gimmes. I feel like whoever's skating the best is going to be at the top. And I feel like that's where it should have always been.”
Breaking the surface
With Paris 2024 beckoning, Carew is in an altogether different position than he was before.
Sitting in third in the Olympic World Skate Rankings, as the second from the USA, gone are the days where the teenager looked up at those above him.
In the years since Tokyo, he has transformed himself from outsider to contender with impressively consistent results to match such a claim.
The Californian has made every World Skate event final and each time his placing has improved. At last year’s World Championship in Rome, he stepped onto his first podium, a moment made even sweeter by the lingering ankle injury he was carrying.
There is a combination of things Carew credits for his rise. The accumulation of contest experience for one and more simply, his physical growth:
“Last time I was qualifying, I was, you know, maybe an eighth grader or freshman in high school or something like that. And I just felt very tiny compared to everyone else. I mean, they were going way higher, way faster, longer grinds. And I feel that this time around I'm just that much stronger, that much bigger.”
But perhaps more ominously, the greatest shift appears to have been in Carew’s mindset. That much becomes clear when he talks about how he is approaching what lies ahead.
“This entire year, I've just kind of had the mentality of, I really don't have anything to lose. I have kind of just been breaking the surface of what I think I'm capable of in the future, and I think I'm just going to continue that mindset for the rest of the year and just see how far it takes me.
“I feel like all of us are at such a high level now that there's no one that can, help us better than ourselves,” Carew continues talking about the edge that can be found in confidence and self-belief. “The skating is all in the skater, but the mental stuff can definitely be, you know, tweaked.”
Tate Carew performing an allyoop 360 tail grab at WST: Park World Championships in Ostia, Rome.
Tate Carew: "I've always been very competitive"
The competitor in Carew that reveals itself as the conversation unfolds, is something he says is innate.
Growing up in the blissful seaside community of Point Loma in San Diego, skateboarding’s spiritual home, Carew’s first experience on a board he estimates was between the ages of five and six.
With his father having grown up surfing and skating, Carew’s transition into the sports was simple enough but no one quite expected how quickly or deeply he would fall in love with skateboarding.
“I think I was kind of always just telling him [Dad], you know, I could do this; I can do that; I want to try this and he never stopped me. And I think that was the best thing he could have done. He just kept saying: ’Yeah totally. You can do that.’
That quiet encouragement brought out something fierce and determined in the aspiring skater: “When I started doing contests and stuff, I feel like I've always been very competitive. So it was just kind of second nature, standing up on a podium,” the skater explains.
“I still think one of the first contests I won, there were three different events in it: street, mini ramp and this bowl contest. And I woke up that morning and my dad told me, ‘Just do your best’. And I was like, no, I'm gonna win that one. And then I won all three events and, I don't know, I suck at street and bowl is more my thing, and then it kind of evolved to park and vert. But yeah, I woke up in the morning. I told him, I’m gonna win today. And he was like, ‘All right, let's see”, and it happened.”
But it’s not just his father that Carew credits for nurturing his drive. Those at his local skate spot Claremont also played their hand in shaping him into who he is today: “There were a lot of people that really helped me kind of evolve as a skater. They showed me what it's like to get pushed by people and I really kind of started to break through in my skating career.”
That collaborative atmosphere that Carew says he benefited from is at the heart of skateboarding culture. Age, gender, language, and experience all dissolve when it comes to helping fresh-faced skater find their feet. It’s what makes the community dimension of the craft so unique and why, the American says, influence is such a key part of understanding a skater’s journey.
“I think who inspires the skater is an important thing to know about someone,” Carew muses.
“With skating, people have different styles and stuff and you can't really recreate that. But I feel like also they have a certain group of tricks or something that's just extra unique or something and you might try to mirror that a little bit.
“My number one is Alex Perelson. He didn't really influence my skating because I just don't really think his skating is match but he definitely, always got me hyped up to skate. I don't really watch that many skate videos, but when I do, it's probably his Snow Blind video. I just love watching his skating and I think the way that he skates is something that I would like to recreate someday.”
A young Tate Carew at the Nitro World Games Men's Vert Final in Vista, California in 2018
Stronger together
As Carew carries on the ever-winding road to Paris 2024, which he acknowledges has been something akin to a marathon, there’s also an overwhelming sense that for the American there is nothing else he’d rather be doing.
On top of the travel and all the skating he gets to do, many of his current competitors are skaters he has known most of his life. Once all young groms tackling vert ramps ten times their size, now their group is taking over the world and topping Olympic qualifying podiums and it’s clear the meaning that holds for the American.
“To grow up skating with some of these guys, and not qualifying into finals and stuff, and now being able to share those moments with them is pretty awesome. I mean, especially when you're skating with people that you've looked up to for a long time and just some of the friends that you’ve been on this journey the whole time with,” Carew says acknowledging the uniqueness of the environment.
“The Brazilians bring some of the - I don't even know what word would fit well - but they just bring so much energy to every event, and everyone I think, is just trying to match that and hope that everything kind of falls into place. Everyone is obviously trying to one-up the scores but I just love the idea that you can skate with friends and be in a very competitive state of mind, but at the same time still push each other and, you know, root for each other.’
One example Carew draws is his friendship with Italy’s star park prospect Alessandro Mazzara. The two, he says, met at Vert Attack in Sweden at around the age of 11 and despite not being able to speak to each other without assistance, they forged a lifelong bond.
“We met at that same contest Vert attack, and, we became close with his family, and they spoke no English, and they invited us to come stay at their house. So my mom and I went out to Italy and we spent, I think, a week with them, and we just skated every day. They made us amazing food. And every night we would sit down and get our phones out for Google Translate and just talk like that.”
The recent World Championships were incidentally held in Mazzara’s backyard park, in Ostia, Rome, the same bowl the two had whizzed around when Carew flew over. That it would become the place it would be crowned a world runner-up in park skating is something he never imagined possible.
“Now Ale speaks perfect English and we just got to see their family again when we were there for the contest. And it was the same thing. We all had a big dinner and we were doing Google Translate and Ale was helping us kind of with the language barrier. But it’s an amazing story. I stayed with their family after barely knowing them, they welcomed us into their home. And it was it was awesome.”
All eyes on Paris 2024
While the world grapples with what it sees as the contradiction between skaters being both sincere competitors and genuine friends, the skaters are all altogether focussed on something different: qualifying for Paris.
With his third-place ranking, Carew is a shoo-in for the second phase of the qualifying process, which will see the top 44 ranked skaters invited to a two-part Olympic Qualifying Series [OQS] hosted in the cities of Shanghai and Budapest. At the end of that phase, the field will be cut once again to leave just 22 for the Games.
The scale of the points on offer during the OQS means nothing is promised to anyone once which perhaps explains Carew’s caution when it comes to talk of Paris.
“I don't really think I've quite comprehended that yet,” he said on envisioning the Games. “I think I'm just trying to take everything one step at a time. And, obviously, with how many points the last couple of contests are worth, no one's really safe in their spot. So, it's kind of hard to get your hopes up.”
But as quick as he to assess the reality of the situation, Carew doesn’t hesitate to flash his self-confidence.
World Skateboarding Tour Dubai Park 2024, the final stop of phase one on the road to Paris 2024, will be more time to practise and gather experience, and if his contest journey until now has told the American anything, it’s that he will only get better.
“I do feel confident in my skating, and I would really love to go and be able to represent our country and just experience that kind of atmosphere and that level of skating. And I just feel like making it to the 2024 Olympics would be, a huge moment in my skating career. And obviously, that's ideal, right?”