Category: 1980s
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Sue Smith
Sue Smith took up skateboarding in the 1970s and appears in contest results in the early 1980s in the girls 13 and under categories, representing Lakewood park. Thanks to the newsprint Skat’nNews, there’s a thorough review of competitive skateboarders including the women although the reportage of their runs and background story was still minimal. The…
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Christy Jordahl
My awareness of Christy Jordahl (Hurst) from Huntington Beach, CA began almost like an unfounded rumour. I had read an interview with Saecha Clarke in the magazine Check it Out back in 2005 who explained that she only knew two other female street skateboarders in the late 1980s being her friend Christy and Anita Tessensohn.…
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Sue Hazel
Sue Hazel is the UK equivalent to Cara-beth Burnside considering her long-standing skateboarding career from 1977 to the present and her role in supporting the progression of female skaters in Britain. While brief interviews of Sue appeared in UK magazines Sk8Action and Skateboard! during the 1980s, a more thorough interview was conducted in 2010 by…
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Michelle Sanderson
Michelle Sanderson (Hart) from West Covina, California was a competitive freestyle skater in the early 1980s who persevered during an era when skateboarding had dramatically declined in popularity compared to the 1970s but slowly returned to full force. Photo: a still of Michelle skating in the film Future Primitive (1985) Michelle competed in the California…
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Nathalie Richter
Nathalie Richter from Bonn was Germany’s amateur female skateboarding champion in the late 1980s, and thanks to the ‘zine Equal Time, edited by Lynn Kramer, her story isn’t lost! Nathalie began skateboarding in February 1986 and three years later, at age 19 she was riding for Vans, G&S, Venture, Speed Wheels, and Rector. Nathalie’s feature…
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Lynn Kramer
Lynn Kramer has currently won the World Slalom Champion title seventeen* times, received the first-ever women’s pro slalom board through Sk8Kings back in 2007, and continues her relentless dominance in that field with a solid list of sponsors. Her skateboarding story was launched in the 1980s, and the role she played taking on the Women’s…
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Sophie Bourgeois
In the late 1970s and 1980s, one of the top female skateboarders from Canada was Sophie Bourgeois from Drummondville, Quebec but you would hardly know it due to the limited acknowledgement, if any in Canadian skateboard magazines or history books. Like Pam Judge, Canada’s first female National Champion, Sophie would go on to be sponsored by…
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Babs Fahrney
Babs Fahrney is from San Jose, California and lives in Santa Cruz. She was a skater in the 1980s and was included in Bonnie Blouin’s classic Thrasher article, “Sugar and Spice..?” on the female skate scene in the April 1986 issue along with the likes of Michelle Sanderson, April Hoffman, Stephanie Person, and KZ Zapata.…
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Lauri Kuulei Wong
Ladies Skateworld was a ‘zine that launched on April 15, 1986 highlighting the scene at Del Mar Skate Ranch, and was possibly the first skateboarding ‘zine written by and for female skaters. The DIY publication was signed by an elusive skater named “Lauri” or simply “L.K.W.” Some clues to her identity included reference to Hawaiian…
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Lora Lyons (Medlock)
Lora Lyons (Medlock) was from Edinburgh, Pennsylvania and began skateboarding after she graduated high school in the late 1970s when her boyfriend (later husband) “bought a crappy plastic board and told me to come over after work. So the first time I got on a board I was wearing a skirt and pantyhose, no shoes!…
Womxn Skateboard History 