Up until the last couple of years, the women's skate scene in Australia was "very, very small," Shanae Collins told POPSUGAR. "Now with the boom in skating, there's so many more girls that have gotten into it. Young girls that are whipping out of nowhere. It's really f*cking sick."
Though Shanae isn't solely focused on making it into the Olympics, she said that its inclusion is more important than people might realize. "It's brought a big change in equality and skateboarding that really needed to happen." According to several skaters, skateboarding's Olympic debut has led to competitions offering equal prize money for men and women, a huge step forward in making the sport more equal. "I know there's people that have issues with skateboarding being in the Olympics and say that it's going to take the creativity out of skating," Shanae said. "But honestly, no one is forcing you to go to do these contests. It's just created something for other people to be able to make a living out of it."
