On September 26, 1975, Jennifer Dimon (Coppa) at age 7 was in the limelight for a feature article by Jim Hart within the San Pedro News Pilot. Hart wrote that, she “already has a closetful of trophies for her exploits on a board with rollerskates. Just last week Jennifer won a first place and two thirds in the PSRA’s World Championships at the L.A. Sports Arena. She was first in downhill slalom and third in the freestyle and cross country events, competing against girls up to 9 years old.” Apparently, she was even a guest for ABC-TV’s AM America program.
Jennifer was also featured launching herself off a kicker in a critical essay written for Skateboarder magazine (August 1976) by Cindy Berryman called, “Let’s Hear it for the Ladies.”
Photo: Jeff Ruiz
And a page later she’s shown gearing up – maybe getting ready to bomb a hill. The caption under her photo stated that, “Due to the lack of other entrants, six-year-old Jennifer Dimon had to compete with the boys at the Ventura contest [February 1976]. Bad news, boys – she took 1st place in freestyle and 3rd in slalom.”
There’s also a video of the contest with clips of Jennifer throughout.
A year earlier, at the 1st Annual Southern California Skateboard Championships at the Orange Country Fairgrounds, Dimon placed 2nd behind Lark Calderon in the Women’s age 9 and under slalom! (Skateboarder magazine, Fall 1975).
Dimon is later spotted at the Hang-Ten Pro-Am Skateboard Championships in Los Angeles, September 20-21, 1975, ripping around the sports arena. It was reported in the Winter 1975 issue of Skateboarder that she was sponsored by C&D skateshop and placed 1st and then 3rd in two events, although it’s unclear if it was slalom, freestyle, or obstacle course.
While watching the classic skateboard movie, The Magic Rolling Board (1976) there’s a section featuring Jennifer as a six-year-old (see 4:09 mins). The limelight continued in 1977 when Jennifer was featured on the cover and within LaVada Weir‘s book Skateboarders and Skateboarding taking the lead in slalom.
[Update!] On November 18th, 2023, Jennifer reached out after finding herself on the website and included this amazing resume that her dad had thoughtfully typed-up for his daughter back in the day.
You can get a full picture of all the consistent first-place finishes Jennifer had, and the second page expands upon her appearances in films and commercials! There was an interview and demo with Art Linkletter on Wonderful World of Children in 1976, a performance on the “New Mickey Mouse Club” in 1975, several skateboard safety features and commercials for Starburst Candy (1975) and Mattel’s Magnum Skateboards (1977). How cool is that?!
There’s a quick clip of Jennifer racing slalom in this Skateboard Safety video, which also features Andra Malczewski and Debi Eldredge of the Unity Team, and Desiree Von Essen, among other female skaters:
And, even more exciting news – Jennifer (Dimon) Coppa is back racing slalom again. In fact, she was named the USA National Slalom Skateboard Team “Rookie of the Year” in 2023 and is riding for Sk8Kings Skateboards (among other sponsors). She’ll be heading to the World Skate Games in Italy 2024, at age 55 after earning the title of “Banked Slalom World Champion” at the Ditch event in 2024 according to the USA Slalom Skateboarding IG account (June 27). Go Jennifer!
Check out her Instagram account, which is also loaded with vintage content from the mid 1970s when her dad, Jack Dimon was active in organizing contests.
References:
Womxn Skateboard History 