“Skateboarding is a relatively new sport in India and the skateboarding community is small but growing. We face several challenges, such as a lack of proper infrastructure, limited access to skateboarding equipment and low awareness of the sport,” says Swapnil Magar, 32, who has been related to the Pune Skateboarding Association.

Despite these challenges, there are a number of skate boarders, people and organisations working in direction of selling and growing the game. In Pune, skate boarders say, there was no spot devoted to the game initially, which left them with the one possibility of utilizing roadside benches that had been waxed to create hurdles. Swapnil, as an example, says he has been instructing the game for 10 years on the aspect of JM Road and in non-public lessons.

Some of this modified in October 2021, when Dinkar Gojare, an government engineer with the roads division of PMC, observed skate boarders practising on the streets of JM Road and offered the affiliation with a devoted monitor on a footpath in Pashan.

But skate boarders say this resolution got here with its personal set of issues. “The track does not have adequate streetlights for visibility. It is mostly deserted and on the roadside, which makes it vulnerable to accidents. Also, the track is on an incline. It is a downhill course, which is not favorable to the sport as we need an even platform,” says a skateboarder.

Last 12 months, the Illesium Club in Bavdhan got here up with a skateboarding facility, which now has college students within the age-group vary of 4-44.

“Skateboarding needs more recognition from the government so that tracks can be developed and existing ones managed. A separate government park has also been proposed by the association in areas like Balewadi and Swargate,” says Swapnil, whose college students embrace Shraddha Gaikwad, {the teenager} who gained gold on the National Games in Gujarat.

Deaguk Bae, a South Korean by origin, has been carefully associated to skateboarding for twenty-four years and is now a coach on the Bavdhan facility. “All my life I have been skateboarding and want more people to know about the sport. It’s not an indoor sport and people need to know more about it for which its presence is very important. A few years ago, a facility was made under the smart city project in Pimpri, but because of poor maintenance it is not of much use,” he says.