Olympic skateboarder pushes the boundaries for women and girls in her sport
The first skateboard that Amelia Brodka ever rode wasn’t hers.
“My brother got one from my parents right after we moved to America from Poland when I was 8 years old — and he actually didn’t want me to use it,” said Brodka, who graduated in 2012 with a dual degree in narrative studies from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and communication from USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “He said that I didn’t do it right because I just rode around on it on my knee. But I just remember falling in love with that feeling of air rushing in my face and being inches above the asphalt.”
That skateboard met its untimely demise when her parents backed over it with their car. “We were an immigrant family, so my parents said, ‘Well, you didn’t take care of it, so you don’t get another one,’” she recalled. She didn’t ride again until she was 12 and convinced her parents to buy her a board of her own.
Even though she faced scorn from male skateboarders — “I would get made fun of or bullied because I was always the only girl at the skate park,” she said — she quickly became fascinated with doing tricks and watching the best skaters in the world.
That same year, she went to see the X Games in Philadelphia. “We were waiting to watch the men’s competition for best trick and walking around the arena when we saw a vert ramp at the other end of the stadium,” Brodka recalled. “As we approached it, we realized it was women and girls our age, and they were doing phenomenal tricks and airs. In that moment, I knew that I wanted to be just like them.”
Brodka went on to realize that dream, not only becoming a competitive skateboarder, but also producing a documentary about girls and women in skateboarding. She also co-founded a nonprofit, Exposure Skate, that promotes access and inclusion for women and girls in skateboarding.
And now, Brodka is one of 66 Trojans — more than half of them USC Dornsife or USC Annenberg current students or alumni — competing in the Olympic Games this summer.
Skateboarding will be making its first appearance as an Olympic sport, and Brodka will compete for Poland in the women’s park event.