With a skateboard under her feet and freedom in her head, downhill skateboarder Lisa Peters travels around the world. From spot to spot, from mountain top to mountain top.
The wide asphalt road on ‘t Kopje in Bloemendaal, The Netherlands is quiet and somewhat winding. A black cat climbs over the fence along the road, (amateur) cyclists ride up and down the climb of a few percent. And a skateboarder wearing a futuristic helmet crashes down. Cutting corners, gaining speed, braking by placing her skateboard perpendicular to the road. This is the home spot of Lisa Peters, 28 years old, downhill skateboarding world champion.
Standing on a board with four wheels, practitioners of this extreme sport enjoy the speed, the adrenaline, the freedom. In competitions they race on a closed course and Peters has already reached a top speed of 112 km/h (in Bloemendaal it is 55 km/h, by the way).
In training they steer with their board between cars and cyclists. Without major accidents happening. Peters: “Normal people would think we have gone completely crazy, but we are always in control.”
World champion
Peters became world champion in the Philippines this year in a sport that is what it is: descending as fast as possible. In qualifications they ride solo for the fastest time, in the real competitions they race down with four competitors at the same time in heats. Depending on the course and the quality of the asphalt, Peters determines her tactics and technique. “Is it a road with many bends, where I have to brake a lot, or can I crash down really hard with big wheels under my board? I have about six sets of wheels with me and based on such questions, I decide which wheels to use.”
Downhill skateboarding is being seriously practiced in ten to fifteen countries. Peters is the only one in the Netherlands who belongs to the world top. She has to figure everything out herself, including the finances, assisted by some loyal sponsors. “I feel like a top athlete, I am world champion, but I am not supported by the National Olympic Committee.” During competitions it sometimes becomes painfully clear what that means. Athletes from other countries have a whole team around them, Peters does not. “I don’t even have a coach or a physio. For example, everyone hands in his or her things for the material check, I have to stand in that long line myself. I then regularly join other teams, such as Mexico.”
Downhill skateboarding consists of a close-knit community. Peters has just returned from a competition in Erzincan, Turkey, where she was the only woman among the men to participate in an event. And last summer she went wild camping in Europe with her international skate friends. On her motorcycle, from mountain top to mountain top, from spot to spot. With a tent, a backpack, a sleeping bag, a gas burner and her skating gear. “We got up at six in the morning and went skating up a mountain pass at sunrise, that’s such a magical moment. When I feel the wind and I’m enjoying the view, then I think: My God, that I can crash through this with my skateboard… That’s why I sacrificed so much for it: my house, my permanent job, actually all my stability.”
This means, for example, that Peters doesn’t have a permanent place of residence, because she often lives with friends abroad. “The sport is not that big, so everyone in the world is actually your friend. When I go to Mexico, I know I have friends who will pick me up from the airport. They tell me where the best roads are for skating. In France, local skaters know the perfect spots. And they tell me, for example, that there is a woman living somewhere who doesn’t like us very much, so we better drop in front of that house.” When Peters is in the Netherlands, she looks for temporary accommodation, works in a coffee shop in Haarlem and earns money by making skate videos and organizing clinics and small events.
Borrow a helmet
Until she was seventeen, she used her skateboard to get from A to B, from home to high school. Until she saw videos on You Tube of daredevils racing downhill on such a board in California. Peters ended up in The Hague on a practice day. “I couldn’t do anything when I got there. But I could borrow a helmet and I was immediately taught things like how to slide by all kinds of helpful people.” And drifting, a technique where you steer straight through the bend with your board and where downhill skateboarders have a unique tool. Ice hockey pucks are attached to their gloves with velcro. You scratch with it over the asphalt to put less body weight on the board.
Through lessons at a cycling track, she went from training in Belgium to an event in Slovenia within a year. “You could immediately descent down a road at 80 km/h there. That was real survival. I looked like a bundled up soldier: elbow pads, crash pads. I learned a lot there. From that moment on it has been my passion and I have adapted my life to skating.”
Peters wants to perform again at the World Skate Games in Italy in September. She is one of the top four women in downhill skateboarding and is one of the contenders. But for Peters, downhill skateboarding is more than winning competitions. “It’s a lifestyle. Over the past two years, I have lived in the Netherlands six times for a month and a half, then I left again. I’m taking it all in. I don’t live just from event to event, but I live for this life.”
