Still a niche and, somewhat, rebellious urban pastime? Perhaps. But skateboarding's profile in China has seen quite a flip with its Olympic inclusion inspiring greater participation and stronger government backing.

The sport's just-concluded program at the 15th National Games, following its debut at the quadrennial sporting gala in 2021, has shed new light on its rapid growth in China, thanks to the Olympic exposure, with more teen riders involved since the preliminary rounds and all the final sessions finishing with closer title races compared to four years ago.

Just ask reigning Asian Games champion Chen Ye, a young prodigy specializing in park skating, how tough it was to outperform his younger, yet more fearless, opponents to claim his first National Games title in his home city of Huizhou, Guangdong province.

"The pressure of the competition is so intense, because all the younger skaters have really stepped it up a notch in their runs," said Chen, a 17-year-old high school student, who won the men's park final on Nov 11.

"With better support in training facilities and coaching expertise nowadays, the younger kids have emerged quick and strong," said Chen, who, influenced by his father, stepped on a skateboard for the first time at seven years old and won the 2023 Asian Games title in Hangzhou at 15.

"There's definitely been a better vibe with the sport almost everywhere in China."

Better quality and higher difficulty of tricks stomped by Chen's fresh-faced challengers, such as the 13-year-old runner-up Zhang Yongchao, during last week's tournament have borne witness to Chinese riders' noticeable technical progress over the last four years.

Chen's winning score of 87.23 points from his third run in the final eclipsed his gold-medal mark of 84.41 points at the 2023 Asian Games, yet was barely enough to edge out Zhang by a margin of just 1.56 points.

The park discipline involves athletes skating across a hollowed-out concrete bowl and performing a variety of tricks using different elements, such as ramps, quarter-pipes and bumps, to accumulate as high a score as possible in each of their three 45-second runs.

The changing public perception of the sport was also laid bare during the two-day National Games meet, where a small, yet passionate, crowd, including toddlers craning to watch while standing on their own boards, "oohed" and "aahed" to each of the spins, flips, slides and grabs, demonstrating a deep understanding of the sport.

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And why wouldn't they have one? The choice of Huizhou as skateboarding host wasn't just a random one.

The warm and cozy city, located on the lush hilly land near the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, has emerged as a skateboarding hot spot in China, having cultivated a group of teen prodigies and developed a robust industry with skateboard manufacturing at its core.

Three of the four winners in both the men's and women's park and street disciplines at the National Games were born, or developed, in Huizhou, while the city's skateboard production accounts for about 40 percent of the annual global market share, according to the city's sports bureau.

As a pride of the city, and Chinese skateboarding as a whole, teen sensation Zheng Haohao left a mark at last year's Paris Olympics by qualifying for the women's park and competing in the French capital at 11 years old, becoming the youngest Olympian across all sports at the 2024 Games.

The influence of her Olympic debut was felt quickly.

"At the beginning of (2019), I practiced almost by myself every day at the skate park," Zheng, now 13, said after finishing third in women's park on Nov 11.

"After the Olympics, more of my schoolmates came to me, asking if I could teach them, and more people showed up at the park where I used to skate alone.

"I feel really stoked and proud of that."

Now, with more commercial clubs and private promoters joining in, skateboarding's grassroots development is expected to engage a wider range of participants, according to Wei Naizhang, head coach of Guangdong's provincial roller skating and skateboarding team.

"I am quite positive that, after these National Games, skateboarding is going to attract more attention and support, and we will cultivate more young riders with the potential to make it to the next Olympics," Wei said.

Going to LA28, where skateboarding will make its third straight appearance on the Olympic program, women's street skater Cui Chenxi is likely to remain China's leading hope for a podium finish in southern California, where the sport is believed to have been invented by surfers in the 1950s.

A 14-year-old Cui sent an inspirational message to all her peers about the power of passion last summer by riding her beloved skateboard — a hobby she picked just five years ago — all the way to a fourth-place finish in women's street final at Paris 2024.

A few inches taller and a lot more stronger than she was a year ago, the now 15-year-old Cui pulled off a smooth series of dazzling tricks with more difficult flips and spins to win her maiden National Games title last week.

"I jumped higher, with more strength, and I was more mentally poised approaching each of my runs in the final," Cui, who represented her home province of Shandong, said after securing her win with a combined score of 247.15 points. "I've also improved the consistency of my tricks, as well as the way my moves connect during a run."

In the street competition, riders navigate through urban-inspired courses featuring stairs, rails and other obstacles to execute tricks. Each skater takes two 45-second runs on the course before each performing five additional tricks. The final score is aggregated from a rider's best run and the two best tricks, requiring a versatile repertoire imbued with quality, creativity and style to prevail.

Looking ahead, Cui minced no words about her ambition.

"For the short term, I want to win a medal at the next World Skateboarding Tour event in Japan, while my longer-term goal is to finish on the podium at the LA28," said Cui, who finished fourth in her last WST appearance in Rome in June.