Skateboarding has always been a controversial topic amongst any sort of establishment or organization, as it was and still is founded in crime, dissent, and nonconformism. Skaters have always been reduced by society to criminals, and never athletes until very recently. Because of this, skateboarding as a cultural practice and as a “sport” are so distant from each other as cultural phenomena. It is not that skateboarding cannot be practiced as a sport, it is that skateboarding as an olympic sport is completely foreign from what skateboarding means traditionally. Like a government sanctioned graffiti wall, most of the artistry of the practice is immediately robbed by any form of institutionalization of the activity. This is obvious in the difference between olympic skateboarding and the traditional practice of skateboarding that is still incredibly vital. An activity within an institution will always contain laws, norms, and barriers that are placed upon the actors by a governing body of some sort, while skaters resistant to the institution will continue to do what they think is beautiful and true, regardless of law, or conventional social norms. -max