Filipino 2020 Olympics skateboarding contender Margie Didal on the boarder vibe, growing up with nothing, and giving back
- Margielyn Didal caught the skateboarding bug when she was 12. Now one of Asia’s best female skaters, she is training for this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo
- Growing up in Cebu City, the Philippines, she was chased by police for skating illegally on the streets – today they chase her for selfies
It’s a sunny Tuesday afternoon and Filipino Margielyn Didal is in her element as she glides effortlessly around the Lai Chi Kok Park Skatepark in Hong Kong.
Just 1.5 metres (5ft 1 inch) tall and weighing 49kg (108 pounds), she is the smallest of the 10 or so skaters navigating the park’s ledges, rails and stairs. But don’t be fooled by her small stature. This 20-year-old is a skating force to be reckoned with, ranked 12th among the world’s female street skateboarders.
In 2018, Didal won a gold medal at the Asian Games in Indonesia, and she scooped another gold the following year at the Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines. She is the first Filipino to compete in Street League Skateboarding (in London in 2018) and at the X Games (in the American city of Minneapolis in 2018), an annual extreme sports event hosted by sports channel ESPN.
Now she has her sights on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo in July, where skateboarding has been included in the Games for the first time.
If Didal wins, it would be the first Olympic gold medal for the Philippines. While happy the sport is getting some much deserved attention, Didal says it’s not just about medals.
“It’s also about the vibe – how the skate community treats each other,” says Didal, who has been skating since she was 12. “It’s tight and we don’t treat opponents as an enemy but treat them as family, as a friend, as a homie.”