Skateparks were still a novelty in Hong Kong when Warren Stuart and his friends were showing off their skills at a black podium between the now-demolished Queen’s Pier and City Hall in Central in the late 1980s. In the days before the internet, they read magazines and watched videos to learn about overseas skateparks such as the one in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, as they dreamed of pulling off rail flips and slides at a similar one in their own city one day. Thirty years later, after consulting on numerous skatepark projects across Asia, Stuart, now 56, stood surveying the new skate bowl at On Lok Mun Street Playground in Fanling when it opened to the public on Saturday. The skate bowl is the first in the city to receive “Competition Class 1 star” certification by World Skate, the governing body officially recognised by the International Olympic Committee for skateboarding and roller sports activities. Its street course has attained “Recreational Class 3 stars”. “I’m excited. This is the best thing to happen to Hong Kong skateboarding. To have a skate park like this. First of its kind. Quality is impeccable,” Stuart said. “It’s the first and only skate park in Hong Kong that has a bowl like this.” Stuart, a former head of the Skateboarding Subcommittee at the Federation of Roller Sports, said the certification meant the facility could host official contests for China. “Skaters, athletes can actually train here in a competition-standard bowl to prepare themselves for contests elsewhere,” he said. “They know they’re skating in something that’s very close to or the same standard as a competition bowl.” The 3,800 square metre facility, which took two years to build, can be used for skateboarding, in-line skating, scootering and bicycle motocross by enthusiasts with different levels of ability. The skate bowl features two sets of curved surfaces, with one 2.6 metres (8.53 feet) high and the other 1.6 metres tall. The government collaborated with California Skateparks, which built the skateboarding venue for the Paris Olympics. The old On Lok Mun Street Playground, which had a smaller skatepark, was demolished in 2023 due to development projects. But Stuart said that in 2019 authorities told him they were planning to build an exact copy across the street. “We pushed back hard. It was a golden opportunity to redesign the park to modern international standards,” he said. Fortunately, skateboarding later grabbed the world’s attention when it made its debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which helped Stuart succeed in convincing authorities of his plan. Stuart said the park could also promote sports tourism by attracting skaters from around Asia to train. He said a similar trend had been observed at Lai Chi Kok Park Skatepark, which was certified by Street League Skateboarding, an international skateboarding tournament series, in 2018. He added that the Fanling facility would be a new home and training base for the skating community, helping to enhance standards. California Skateparks flew in artisans, who were also skaters, from around the world to build the facility. Julien Wahart, the international project manager of the company, said the skatepark was “one of a kind”, as each facility was designed based on the needs of the community and the characteristics of the site. “The community finally gets a nice and awesome skate park, and when we see them skating and riding scooters or bikes we are just stoked, super happy,” he told the Post during his visit to the skatepark. To obtain certification, the design must meet specific requirements in terms of complexity, design flow, heights, depths, angles and radii, while the construction must be to the highest quality standards. But the park’s grand opening last Saturday was met with stormy weather, prompting staff to chain the gate. It triggered some scuffles between staff and skaters who had travelled from across the city to try out the facility. “We’d like to be able to help out and help to clean out the water and stuff, but it seems like the security here or whoever is in charge isn’t letting us do that,” Alex Buffery, a 27-year-old scooter rider, said. Other skaters were confused about staff stopping people without a helmet from entering as they said it was not mandatory at other skateparks. Such situations were not unfamiliar to the local skateboarding and rollersports community. Stuart said skate bowls, which are more than three metres deep, were also installed in skateparks in Tseung Kwan O and Diamond Hill, but they had been cordoned off as authorities considered them dangerous. “You first have to go through the official association to apply to use the bowl, and then when you’re approved, you have to have a certified coach watch you use the bowl,” he said. “In real life, that does not happen. The last 10 years, no one has used those bowls … That’s why no one skates bowls in Hong Kong.” He urged the government to loosen its measures so that young skaters in Hong Kong could be trained in them. “We have kids in Taiwan, mainland China, Southeast Asia – 10, 11, 12 years old riding bowls, doing 1080[-degree] spins, 720[-degree] spins because they’re learning in them,” he said.