Amelia Brodka ’12 produced an acclaimed documentary and established a not-for-profit to promote females’s skateboarding. Now she’s completing in among the first-ever Olympic skateboarding occasions. [2 min read]
Amelia Brodka gets air at an Olympic qualifier in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Chris Dangaard.)
The very 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,” stated Brodka, who finished in 2012 with a double degree in narrative research studies from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and interaction 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 satisfied its unforeseen death when her moms and dads backed over it with their cars and truck. “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 remembered. She didn’t ride once again till she was 12 and persuaded her moms and dads to purchase her a board of her own.
Even though she dealt with refuse from male skateboarders — “I would get made fun of or bullied because I was always the only girl at the skate park,” she stated — she rapidly ended up being amazed with doing techniques and seeing the very best skaters on the planet.
That exact same year, she visited 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 remembered. “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 understand that dream, not just ending up being a competitive skateboarder, however likewise producing a documentary about women and females in skateboarding. She likewise co-founded a not-for-profit, Exposure Skate, that promotes gain access to and addition for females and women in skateboarding.
And now, Brodka is among 66 Trojans — over half of them USC Dornsife or USC Annenberg present trainees or alumni — completing in the Olympic Games this summer season.
Skateboarding will be making its very first look as an Olympic sport, and Brodka will complete for Poland in the females’s park occasion.
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