SALT LAKE CITY — The X Games are coming to Utah for the first time ever. From June 27-29, Utah State Fairpark will be home to the premier action sports competition, bringing Moto X, BMX and skateboarding to the Beehive State.
It's the 30th anniversary, and we can expect to see the return of one of the greatest skateboarders to hit the action sports scene: Ryan Sheckler.
Sheckler quickly found himself in the national spotlight after he won a gold medal at the X Games in 2003, when he was just 13 years old.
He is now 35 years old and a father of two, and his professional skateboarding career stretches over 22 years.
"It's super exciting to have my career pretty much start out at 13 years old at X Games," said Sheckler. "It's the 30-year anniversary. To be a part of that number, to think back at how many times I've been in an X Games and then also to have my wife and my kids now, coming to watch me compete... I actually started thinking about that today and got a little bit nervous, so I had to switch my mental up real quick."
Sheckler hasn't competed in an X Games since 2017 and has dealt with a lot of injuries that have kept him from the competition stage. This time around, he's feeling better than ever — physically and mentally.
"I had a really good surgery in January that fixed this really gnarly big toe injury that I've been dealing with for six years," said Sheckler. "January, February, March, I was like, 'Man, I actually feel really good again.' Skating felt good, just my attitude around skate feels good."
The skateboarding superstar had to navigate his fame, career and life decisions, growing up in the limelight. He made mistakes, learned from them, and put his health and happiness first.
Embracing his life now, as a devout Christian, raising two little girls alongside his wife, he regrets nothing. He takes pride in the fact that he wouldn't be where his life is now if life didn't happen exactly how it was supposed to.
"My life has looked like it's actually going in the right direction," Sheckler said while smiling. "I definitely got closer in my relationship with Christ, I got closer in my relationship with my wife, girl dad through and through. This is where God has me."
He wants to be a light in the skateboarding world, a world he had to navigate as a kid.
"Coming up as a Christian, I wasn't really living how God wanted me to be living," he said. "I acquired early fame, so I was growing up as a youth with adults and I was going on the road with adults, as a child. I saw adult behavior from a really young age. At that time in skateboarding, nobody was really telling you not to do some of these things that I was seeing."
"Any time you get stuck in sin, it pulls you further away from God," he continued. "I just realized that I had been trying to do my life my way, in my will, and it never worked. There was a day that I just completely surrendered, I said, 'God, please help me. I'll do what you want me to do, I believe in you, I believe you,' and he has over-delivered and continues to over-deliver."
The 3-time X Games gold medalist continued: " I hope it is a great encouragement to people. For me, when I look at what my role is in skateboarding now, it's like, yeah, still to promote skateboarding, how cool it is and how much of a fun activity it is, what kind of trouble it can get kids out of, but also if people want to ask me about Jesus Christ. I'm down to talk to them about it."
Sheckler will compete in the Skateboard Street event on Saturday in Salt Lake City, but having not competed in eight years, does he have a plan for the course, or is he just going with the flow?
"That's a good question because I haven't competed in so long. I wouldn't call myself rusty — I would call myself a little bit removed from the competition scene. Because I've competed my whole life, the second I get there it all clicks back pretty quickly," said the Red Bull athlete. "My job is to make sure that I do have a 60-second run dialed in. I will make sure that I can get a run that has 8-10 tricks in it."
"Getting a podium would be insane — that's the goal — but whether or not it happens, it doesn't matter to me really. I just want to go compete and be a little bit of a light in that skateboarding scene," said Sheckler.
