X Games ladyskaters make kickflip history

Posted at 8:30 AM Jul 31, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

​You'd barely know it from watching ESPN's YouTube channel coverage of the X Games (I don't have television, we've already been over this) but there are women competing in the alt sports event. This year, Lyn-z Adams Hawkins, Karen Jonz and Gaby Ponce, all completed something called a "kickflip indy," making it the first time three women have done the trick in one event. From what this square non-skater can gather, that's when you kick the board, flip it over and grab the board in the air before you land. What you just read there was the dorkiest attempt at writing about something cool, ever. 

Lyn-z (it's so much more fun to call her that than "Hawkins") took home the gold medal for her kickflip indy and attempt at a couple of McTwists. But, from what I can tell, the only ESPN video of her skating (embedding disabled by UGH) at this year's X Games contains neither kickflip indy nor McTwist attempt. Did they not even film the women's vert? Then again, it was just yesterday, so maybe they've not gotten around to it yet. Fingers McCrossed.

The lack of ladies' X Games coverage continues to disappoint. There are zero videos of vert medalists Jonz or Ponce on ESPN. These are the top women skaters in a pretty-fun-to-watch event, and ESPN can't be bothered to throw something up on the Internet about it? It's not like they'd be taking sweet advertising time away from Gatorade Sponsoring More Dudes Jumping Over Stuff And Crashing.

Until women's sports are given more than token coverage, female athletes (and aspiring athletes) will lack the motivation and role models needed to push them to a professional level of competition. Oftentimes I hear sports fans complaining that women's events are boring or less athletically intense than men's events, but it never seems to occur to folks that this is an effect, rather than a cause, of undercoverage and underappreciation.