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Nine Australian skateboarders bound for Olympics, including nation's youngest Paris 2024 competitor

Chloe Covell and Liv Lovelace pose with their boards

Chloe Covell and Olivia Lovelace are among nine Australian skateboarders set to compete at the Paris Olympics.  (AAP Image: Jono Searle)

In short:

A nine-member Australian skateboard team, with competitors ranging in age from 14 to 34, has been announced for the Paris 2024 Olympics. 

It's the the fourth-largest Olympic skateboard team behind the US, Brazil and Japan — while also including the youngest Olympian on the Australian team.

What's next? 

The elite skateboarders will soon head to Paris, where the city's famed Place de La Concorde will be transformed into an urban sports park.

As a nine-year-old, Olivia "Liv" Lovelace was attempting to land tricks on her board surrounded by boys at a Sydney skate park.

"When I first started skateboarding, if I saw one girl, I'd be so hyped," she said.

Now, the 20-year-old is on the Australian Olympic team.

Olivia Lovelace grinding a rail on her skateboard.

Olivia Lovelace competing at the Olympic qualifiers in Budapest in June 2024. (Supplied: Kenji Haruta)

She is one of nine skateboarders announced today who will don the green and gold to compete in Paris at the end of this month.

In the Park event, Keegan Palmer — reigning Olympic champion — and Kieran Woolley return for their second Games, while 14-year-old Arisa Trew and 15-year-old Ruby Trew (not related) both make their Olympic debut.

Park competitions take place on a course consisting of a hollowed-out concrete bowl, with several different elements including ramps, quarter pipes, and bumps.

Thirty-four-year-old Shane O'Neill returns for his second Olympic appearance in the Street event, alongside Olympic debutants Chloe Covell, Haylie Powell, Keefer Wilson and Lovelace.

Two young women skateboarders with giant plane tickets in Australian olympic team gear

Skateboarders Chloe Covell and Olivia Lovelace with their tickets to Paris as part of the Australian team launch for the 2024 Olympics in Gold Coast. (ABC News: Jessica Lamb)

The Street event focuses more on using an urban environment as a playground to do tricks on obstacles like stairs, ledges, curbs and handrails.

It's just the second time skateboarding will be featured at the Olympic Games – with Paris's famed public square Place de La Concorde to be transformed into an urban sports park.

"It's weird to think about … this is so cool because I didn't grow up in the generation where skateboarding was in the Olympics," Lovelace said.

"I've been skateboarding for over half my life and it's just the thing I love to do. 

"You've got to love it to skate — you hit the concrete and get very hurt so you have to have the passion to keep it up."

liv skating 2

Olivia Lovelace says she has been thrilled to see more girls taking up skateboarding.  (Supplied: Kenji Karuta)

This is the second time Lovelace has attempted to qualify for the Olympics, after she broke her arm in the campaign for Tokyo 2020 — an injury that needed three surgeries and a seven-month lay-off from the sport.

Lovelace said she hopes the publicity around the Olympics inspires more girls to try the sport.

"Skateboarding has been male-dominated for a very long time," she said.

"And now sometimes I go down to my local and there's more girls than boys, which is really cool."

Australia will field the fourth-largest skateboard team heading to Paris behind the US, Brazil and Japan — while also including the youngest Olympian on the Australian team.

Gold Coaster Arisa Trew will be 14 years and 86 days when she competes in Paris — making her the seventh-youngest to represent the country in Olympics history, and the youngest in 40 years since swimmer Dimity Douglas competed in the 1984 games in Los Angeles, aged 14 years and 27 days.

Arisa Trew grabs her board

Arisa Trew competes at the Olympic Qualifier Series in Shanghai in May. (Supplied: Trew Photography)

Ian Johnston is Australia's youngest-ever competitor, having coxed the men's pair at the 1960 Games in Rome aged 13 years and 74 days.

Australia's Olympic skateboarding team enters Paris with a wealth of international success, including Arisa Trew and Keegan Palmer both winning the Olympic Qualifying Series in June, and 14-year-old Covell being a 2023 World Championship silver medallist.

Fellow Gold Coaster Covell is a few months older than Arisa Trew, and both are vying to break a 68-year-old record to become the country's youngest Olympic medallists.

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