With over 41 years of skateboarding, Tony Hawk has had his fair share of nicknames, which include “Birdman” and “The Hawk.” The most popular and well known name given to Tony Hawk is “King of Skateboarding,” which he has acquired through competitions, experience, and ground-breaking performances.
Since 1995, when ESPN launched the first X Games event, Tony Hawk has always placed very well in the X Games competitions. The X Games are a series of nationally televised, extreme sport competitions, hosting vert, street, park, and best trick skateboard competitions. He received a gold medal for vert and a silver medal for park, in the 1995 Rhode Island X Games Competition. Since the X Games started, he has won a total of 7 X Games gold medals, 3 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals. With as many medals as Hawk has won, he truly has been seen by millions of X Games viewers, over the years.
During these X Games competitions, Tony Hawk has broken new grounds and given viewers some of the greatest entertainment, as he introduced and landed some of the hardest tricks in the skateboarding industry. Some of the tricks he has amazed X Games viewers are the 900, skating the loop, and most of the other tricks commonly used in skateboarding today, including the Ollie, which he won many competitions with when he first figured it out.
When Tony Hawk figured out the Ollie in the 1980’s, he went out and won 3 National Skateboarding Association competitions, along with 20 other pro skateboarder events. He won all those competitions and was making over $100,000 before he evened turned 18 years old, and well before he graduated high school.
Performing the Ollie and winning these competitions, along with his jaw dropping performances at the X Games with new skateboarding tricks, have all influenced and give reasoning behind why Tony Hawk is known as the “King of Skateboarding.”
