When he was seven, Jaakko Ojanen was strolling through the streets of Tampere, Finland, with his brother, then nine, when they chanced upon someone skateboarding.
“The next thing we knew, we wanted to get skateboards of our own,” he recalls.
Many skating sessions and three years later, he’d emerge as Finland’s national champion. It was a moment he still remembers fondly, describing it as his “most emotional moment”.
“That was because I didn’t plan to win it,” he says, “There I was, just skating wherever I could and filming it. The national championship was my first real contest.”
After that, Ojanen went on to take it up more seriously, and today, he’s in India as a Red Bull athlete.
“I’ve been to one DIY skate park in Goa and was impressed with the track. I’d like to see skateboarding become bigger in India.”
As part of his tour, he’s also observing and guiding local youngsters interested in the sport. Many of them here look up to him as an inspiration, but Ojanen had none growing up. “Well, I looked up many videos to watch and learn. Of course, there was Arto Saari, whose techniques on the board were amazing,” he says.
The challenges are many, especially in a place like Finland. “We have a pretty long winter in Finland — six months or more — so we can skate outside only a few months in a year. We have indoor skate tracks though,” he says.
Practising on those tracks helped him go to the next level. Slowly, he also started doing skateboarding tricks, which made him popular among his friends.
“Skateboarding is all about tricks; my most favourite ones are the ones that are simplest to do. The 50-50 Grind is one of them.”
The recent announcement of skateboarding being included in the 2020 Olympics at Japan comes as a huge boost to the sport.
“There’ll be more people interested in it; it’s going to be better times for us,” he says.
