The Women’s Action Sports Alliance Comments on ESPN’s X-Games Dropping Women’s Vert

Earlier this month, I reported that the X-Games had eliminated Women’s Vert Skateboarding from their list of events. I shared quotes from Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins, a multiple time X-Games Gold Medalist in Women’s Vert, as well as skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, both of whom were not pleased with the news.

But there was one other MAJOR source that I figured had to have commentary on the decision: the Women’s Action Sports Alliance. Also known as just “The Alliance,” the group was founded in 2005 in order to give a voice to women in professional skateboarding. The founding members, CB Burnside, Mimi Knoop and Drew Mearns have worked since then to see that women received more equal prizes for X-Games events, to organize the women’s skate events at the X-Games, to encourage women’s participation in skateboarding and more.

Alliance co-founder Mimi Knoop, competing in X-Games 15

I was shocked to see that The Alliance hadn’t commented on the decision, and I was sad to find their official website closed due to being ravamped. So I reached out to The Alliance to ask them about the situation and if they were going to do anything to try and get Vert re-instated. Mimi Knoop responded (!!!) and sent along the following:

Yes, the Alliance will continue to work with ESPN on the women’s skate events at X Games (this year we will only have women’s street). We are still the official sport organizer for all professional women’s skate events at X. We are of course saddened to hear the announcement to drop women’s vert from the line-up. We know first hand that the vert/bowl side of women’s skateboarding is growing very rapidly, and more girls are progressing faster now than ever before. We hope to soon be able to create further opportunities for the girls in skating through newer, broader avenues (with or without a vert event featured at X Games in the future). We will be launching our new website in the coming weeks, and will have some new info (and ways to get involved with us) available then!

So, yes, definitely keep your eyes on the website!

What do you guys think about all of this? I know when I last posted about this, commenters stated they didn’t even know there were women’s events at the X-Games. Would you be more interested in watching the X-Games if there were more women involved? Do you skate? Do you want to? Did you know that Buzznet has a Girl Skaters group? Share your thoughts!