When Amar Hadid whips around the skate bowl and throws herself into the air, the reaction from the spectators is what gives the 18-year-old all the motivation she needs.
"Being a girl, the little kids are like: 'Can you drop in?' Then they watch me and are like: 'Whoa, are you pro?'" Hadid said.
"One guy said to me, 'I never knew girls can do that', and I told them, 'Yeah, girls can do anything'."
Hadid only hopped on a skateboard five years ago but was this year awarded Australia's first academic athlete scholarship at the University of Sydney for skateboarding.
She's balancing her first year of a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in biology and Arabic, with training for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics which will include skateboarding for the first time.
"I love ramp skating because it's just as creative; you make your own lines and the combination of tricks one after another," Hadid said.
"I was battling with myself whether I wanted to do skating or soccer, but skateboarding gives me a feeling like no other sport does.
"It's going to sound so cheesy but when I skate, I just feel so free, I feel like I can fly and can do anything. That's why I'm so hooked on it."
Aiming to be the world's best
Fellow first-year student Mikey Mendoza also received one of USYD's athlete scholarships and specialises in street skating; using ramps and stairs for the basis of his tricks.
Mendoza is studying a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in management and economics.
The pair have been chosen to train for the Australian team, but over the next few years will need to compete in several international competitions to be ranked among the world's best.
Only the top 80 athletes — men and women — will be selected to compete at the Olympics.
"It was probably the best thing to happen to skateboarders and to be treated like a professional athlete," Mendoza said.
"The university wants to have skateboarding not just as a novelty thing, 'yeah we're hip' ... they genuinely want to invest themselves in the sport."
Over the weekend Mendoza placed third at the international Street League Skateboarding tournament in Mona Vale.
Discipline and physicality key
Hadid and Mendoza train for several hours a week, both at the gym as well as the skate park.
With the number of falls the pair endure during practice sessions, being flexible, light and fit is critical.
For Hadid, the discipline skateboarding requires is just like any other sport.
"You fall down and you have to get back up again to land the trick," she said.
"You have to keep persisting and that's what life is all about. What you implement in skateboarding you can implement in real life."
