PALEMBANG -- As soon as the awarding ceremony concluded with the Philippine flag perched on top overlooking the entire Jakabaring Sports City Skate Park, gold medalist Margielyn Didal did what any teenager would have done.
In front of hundreds of spectators, media members, officials, and fellow skaters, Didal -- with the newly received medal glowing around her neck -- busted into a dance.
Didal did the floss, repeatedly swinging her arms behind and in front while motioning her body sideways. It was an act of pure jubilation and selfless expression after reaching the summit of athletic competition.
On a sunny Wednesday afternoon in Palembang, the capital city of the South Sumatra province in Indonesia, a 19-year-old Filipina all the way from Cebu earned gold in the women's street skateboarding event at the 18th Asian Games. She blasted the competition with her total score of 30.4 after two strong runs in the skate course followed by pristine execution on all five of her tricks.
"Margie! Margie! Over here!" Friends and teammates cheered for her. Even game officials and volunteers were trying to get a picture. Everybody wanted a piece of Didal.
Skateboarding has attained new definition. From what was merely perceived as a recreational activity, a lifestyle only for the young and hip, skateboarding reached new heights after making its debut in the 2018 Asiad. It is now recognized as an official sport by the second-largest multi-sport event after the Olympics. After the two-day competition in Palembang, skateboarding was officially redefined.
"Thank you to everyone who supported. To all the athletes, especially the skateboarders in the Philippines, all this is for you," said Didal, her eyes filled with tears.
DIDAL has certainly become one of the catalysts of the groundbreaking sport. But more than half a decade ago, the girl from Lahug, Cebu was just a kid running around a skate park, her talent waiting to be found.
In her early teens, Didal discovered the sport at Concave Park, a private skate park in General Echavez street in Cebu City created by a group of friends for an entrepreneurship thesis. However, Didal didn't go to the park to skate at first. She was with her mother, who was selling kwek kwek (deep fried battered quail eggs) outside. As a kid, she roamed around the park -- running, cleaning, and even occasionally helping out at the sundry store making noodles.
She hung out in the park all day, so naturally, she made friends with the skaters. There she met filmmaker and current coach Daniel Bautista and countless other skaters, including eventual friend and teammate Jeff Gonzales. She essentially got a front row ticket to the world of skateboarding.
"Just because she's there all day, she started borrowing our skateboards," Bautista recalled, already noting Didal's lively personality. "She just makes friends with everyone."
Because Didal didn't have her own skateboard, her newfound friends lent her different parts to come up with a makeshift board. One gave her wheels, another a deck, grip tape, as well as trucks from another. Everyone chipping in for the kid.
"At first I thought she was just like any other normal girl," shared Jeff Gonzales, one of the elder statesmen of Philippine skateboarding. "We became friends right away. There was no awkward moment with Margie."
For one and a half years, Didal grew up at Concave Park, learning the tricks of the trade. It wasn't for competition or for fame at that point, it was just for the love of the game. Before she knew it the learning became a yearning. She became actually pretty good at it, like really good.
"She asked if I could teach her this trick - the 360 flip," remembered Bautista, who had been skating since he was eight years old. "And she did it in like a matter of hours! I was like 'Yo, that took me years!' Amazing right?"
Bautista, who lived and breathed skateboarding all his life, was stunned with the potential Didal had at a very young age. He was well connected within the skateboarding community and heard about the girl from Cebu. Concave Park closed since it was just a project created by students, so Didal and her friends only had the opportunity to skate by roaming the streets and random areas of Cebu. Oftentimes they were chased by security guards.
"When we skate on the streets, we always get kicked out. Security guards would sometimes cock their shotguns, just to tell us to leave," Gonzales said. "Other people would have knives and threaten us. [In] Manila, Cebu, it's like that everywhere."
Then came the intercession of Anthony Claravall, a skateboarder lifer like Bautista.
Claravall already knew about Didal but finally had a chance to support her when he became the brand manager of New Balance Numeric Asia Pacific. He noticed immediately Didal had something that set her apart.
"I worked for pretty much every major brand for skateboarding, for magazines, for everybody, for 25 years. I've seen everything," Claravall said. "I've seen the top skaters from when they first started to being household names and then sometimes back to being obscure. And I'm a pretty good judge. I saw Margie, and I was like, 'Wow she has what it takes.'"
"I hope other people's perception (about skateboarding) will change. Skateboarding needs support, especially in the Philippines, in Cebu." Margielyn Didal
Claravall and Didal met two years ago when the former, who is a brand manager, was looking for an Asian team of skaters.
"I've heard about Margie from Dani Bautista who's a friend of mine," Claravall recalled. "He always tells me about her, kinda kept track of her progress. When I got this role at New Balance, I wanted to invest in the future of skateboarding, the best in skateboarding in Asia."
Claravall arranged Didal's flight from Cebu to Manila and within minutes of seeing her skate up close, he knew he had a budding star. He got Didal for his team, as well as eventual Asian Games teammates Gonzales and Mark Feliciano.
Then one of Didal's biggest breaks came when she got invited to Camp Woodward, a premier sports camp in Woodward, Pennsylvania, and one of the best and biggest skate camps in the world. Didal gained entry thanks to a short documentary video made by Bautista that went viral. Since then, Didal has been a common figure at the camp every year.
However, potential and raw talent doesn't instantly make you a gold medalist, especially at the Asian Games level. Even serendipity and opportunity have to be aligned. Didal was good and surely had potential, but how did she become great? How did a teenager from Lahug, Cebu, become the best female street skateboarder in Asia?
"Number one thing is allowing her to believe in herself, allowing her to understand and know what kind of talent she has, allowing her to blossom," explained Claravall. "Expose her to the best skateboarding, so she could see what is the level of the best skateboarding and how she fits in there and what she's great at already and what she needs to work on."
Belief and confidence was never an issue for Didal. She is free-spirited, flamboyant, expressive, fearless, and has a knack for being the funniest person in the room. The night before the biggest competition of her young career, she was dancing and laughing as rain drizzled down the JSC skate park.
"I just enjoy and fool around. So that you won't get the nerves" Didal said on her attitude prior to the finals. "A lot get annoyed because I'm so playful."
HEADING into the Asian Games, a series of events also pushed Didal to success. Last May, she competed in the Street League Skateboarding (SLS) in London. In July, she was in the United States for the X Games in Minneapolis. She went to Camp Woodward before heading to Indonesia to cap off her preparations. Her international experience resulted into a stunning display of skill at the Asian Games.
The skateboard competition is about grading difficulty and measuring skill, like scoring a dance routine. The competition was divided into two parts - runs and best tricks. The scores for each competitor were graded 0.1-10. In the runs, each participant had two 45-seconders to strut his or her stuff on the street course. Didal topped the runs, scoring a 6.7 in her first and doing even better in the second with 7.7. She was leading the pack, but still had a ton of tricks (literally) up her sleeve.
In the best tricks portion, all participants had five attempts. In case of a failed attempt, the score automatically read 0.1.
"All my tricks were fixed. In training, they were all set, I just kept repeating them. If I land one or not, I'd still stick to it," she explained.
All the scores from the first two runs plus the five tricks were tabulated with the three lowest scores removed. In Didal's case, she was the lone skater who executed all her five best trick attempts, stamping her swagger all over the competition.
Her coup de grace was her fourth trick -- a backside 50-50 360-degree flip out that rocked the entire skate park off their feet.
"That's my favorite trick," Didal said with a grin. "When you put (the skateboard) on the ledge then you'll shoot a spiral not just once, but twice or thrice."
"That's super technical. Nobody does that. It's so hard," her coach chimed in.
Oh my goodness! Fourth trick from Didal! pic.twitter.com/fKOytYsZ1m
— Yoyo Sarmenta (@yo_sarmenta) August 29, 2018
Didal executed her favorite trick so effortlessly and nonchalantly. In fact, the entire competition became her own personal playground. She competed with grace, style, and spunk, dancing to her own beat at almost every opportunity. The best female street skater in Asia was still that same kid running around Concave Park all those years ago, full of life and passion.
But the bigger responsibility now falls on the shoulders of the 19-year-old. She is undoubtedly the face of Philippine skateboarding, and essentially Asia. In the Philippines, government support and public approval are beginning to rise to an all-time high, which might spell the creation of local parks and better skating programs.
More importantly, her victory in Palembang will also lead to cultural acceptance of the sport. Hopefully, gone are the days when skateboarders are shunned away and unaccepted.
"I hope other people's perception will change. Skateboarding needs support especially in the Philippines, in Cebu," Didal said. "Our wish as skaters is that we get indoor and outdoor skate parks. Who knows, if you want more gold medals or medals in skate events, then support skateboarding."
All eyes are now on Margielyn Didal as she carries the country on the world stage. Various competitions are still on the horizon, including a possible stint at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in Manila if the sport is added. And just maybe, a Filipina skateboarder at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
It's a lot to ask for a kid who's taking the sport to new heights. But then again, she seems comfortable in her own skin even when she's thrusted into the spotlight. And if Didal has her way, she'll just skate and dance her way to the next adventure.