He’s still got it!
Do you want to know how old Tony Hawk is? He’s so old that the video game that turned him into a household name, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, was re-released in September, 21 years after it first came out, to prey on millennials’ thirst for nostalgia.
Hawk is 52. He retired from competition in 2003 but still skates every day. He’s Tony Hawk, after all. How could he not keep skating? He can still nail tricks that only a handful of people in the world can, but those days are coming to an end. He posted a video on Twitter this week of him landing a 720 (two full rotations) for the first time in years and acknowledged that it’s probably one of the last times he’ll complete the trick.
(Just a warning: The video contains a couple of F-bombs.)
As impressive as it is that he managed to stick the landing, it’s equally amazing that he was able to keep attempting the trick after some of those nasty bails. He hit the ground like a ton of bricks and even after years of punishing his body was still able to pop back up and drop in again.
Hawk wasn’t just showing off, either. He’s also turned this into an opportunity to do some good, auctioning off the board he was using for charity.
This isn’t the first time that Hawk has proved age is just a number. In 2016, at age 48, he landed a 900, the trick that was inconceivable for skaters of any age when he first did it in 1999.
