Tom Schaar, LA dreaming: “I’m definitely going to try and go to the next Olympics”

It is testament to Tom Schaar’s drive that, after winning a silver medal at Paris 2024, the skateboarder wasted little time getting back to work.

“It’s really been the same,” the 26-year-old from the United States told Olympics.com, reflecting on whether life now is different since becoming an Olympic medallist.

“I got to throw out a first pitch at a baseball game, but that’s kind of the only thing that changed. I skated the Olympics and then just went right back to filming for the vert part, and then finished that up.”

Over a year ago, on a balmy French summer’s day, Schaar was locked in on a chase of eventual gold medallist Keegan Palmer.

The reigning Olympic champion set the bar with his opening run in the Olympic final and never looked back as the field set to challenge him.

Fans, including Tony Hawk and Snoop Dogg, watched on in delight as showmanship collided with sportsmanship to create a sporting spectacle worthy of the historic surroundings of a temporary urban park set in La Place de la Concorde.

Yet, no one passed Palmer.

Despite everyone’s best efforts, the Australian emerged victorious, with Schaar finishing in second behind his long-time great friend.

In the end, there were no hard feelings. In fact, by finishing in second, the skater had registered Team USA’s best-ever finish in the event, which made its debut in Tokyo three years prior, marking a significant moment in a sport that is progressing in overdrive.

While his family and friends erupted in a joy his mother still relives today - proudly showing off his medal to anyone and everyone - for Schaar, it was simply a job well done

“I mean, it was really special. I’m not trying to make it sound like the Olympics didn't mean anything to me. It was really, it was awesome. But for the most part, I just kept skating and just, you know, kept going after that.”

"My mom was crying, and she still shows the medal to anybody that comes over to our house" - Tom Schaar to Olympics.com

Tony Hawk performs last-ever indy 540 as part of touching tribute to Palisades fire victim

Tom Schaar hoping to inspire with Vert's not Dead

The question of how a vert part was able to lure Schaar back to toiling after the highs of an Olympic podium finish was answered when the video dropped back in April 2025.

Now with more than 374,000 views on YouTube at the time of writing, the seven-minute-long film captures the skater at the peak of his powers, skating on football goal posts to mega ramps and across a near-five-metre-long gap at Hawk’s ramp in Vista, California.

Just like his 12-year-old self, who became the first-ever skateboarder to land a 1080 on a mega ramp, throughout the clip, the Olympian pushes the limits of what has been imagined in the realm of vert while also paying tribute in his selection of tricks to those who preceded him.

The ambition to create such an innovative part, which took over 18 months to produce, Schaar says, came about after he and Hawk started trying out tricks between them. One thing then led to another, and the U.S. skater soon found himself creating an ode to the discipline he first started out in, and that has faded in popularity in recent decades.

“It really just happened naturally. I was just skating a lot of vert, and we just slowly started filming stuff, and then kind of got the idea just to film a vert part,” he explains.

“I haven't seen a lot of vert parts recently, and it just seems like it's kind of somewhat fading away. I don’t see like too many kids skating it anymore, so just trying to hopefully inspire one person to skate vert, and if that happens, then I'm satisfied.”

Given his love for transition skating, it’s not all that surprising that the Olympic silver medallist is among its greatest proponents for Olympic inclusion, alongside street and park: “I think it'd be great for skating and it'd be really cool,” he says, passionately on the subject.

And while there would be little doubt that he would be among the favourites to excel should it ever make the Olympic program, for now, he will have to stick with park - and, on that, he isn’t too fazed.

There is, he believes, a noticeable advantage in Olympic park skating if you come from a vert background.

“You see a lot of vert tricks that are happening in parks now, so I think you know whoever has like a good vert background is going to start doing well in the park,” Schaar says.

“A lot of the younger kids that are really good at vert are starting to skate more park now, and they’re kind of crossing over to be like a mesh of kind of almost the same thing, which is cool.”

Tom Schaar: Skateboarders are like family

With this year’s park competitions behind him, Schaar will turn his focus to his next big goal: the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028.

Born in Malibu, a city west of LA, the Games offer the American skater the chance to compete at home, and it’s an opportunity he doesn’t want to miss.

“I’m definitely going to try and go to the next Olympics,” says Schaar on his future goals.

“The qualifying stuff starts next year, and after I think these couple of contests this year are done, I'll just start focusing on getting ready for that and just try and do my best again.

“Towards the end of it [the last Olympic cycle], I kind of figured out better how they judge contests and what they're looking for, I guess, more. And I think just knowing that now it will be easier for me to know what certain tricks to work on.”

The skater’s plan to go away and expand his repertoire comes in the wake of vert world champion Gui Khury landing history’s first 900 in a park bowl on the World Skateboarding Tour World Cup stop in Ostia, Italy, back in June.

Having been the face of skate innovation for a period of time, it’s clear Schaar’s admiration for Khury’s “crazy” feat runs deep. But any suggestion that such an achievement might act as a dividing line between the skaters as they push onwards, Schaar quickly dismisses.

"Every year, every contest, it’s like there's someone new doing some new crazy stuff, and then we all get inspired from each other, so we'll see that we’ll just build, and it's just like a constantly evolving kind of thing, and it’s really cool,” he says.

“It’s always a good time, and I hope that's what people take away from seeing skateboarding in the Olympics is that, yes, we're there as Olympic athletes trying to do our best, but it's also, I mean, we're just, we are skaters first.

“It’s like a family, like I grew up with all these people, and we've all skated together since we were like little, little kids, so I think just showing that it was a good camaraderie, and you know, skating's about fun. You shouldn't get into skating because you want to be like a competitive skateboarder. It's supposed to be a fun thing. And then as you progress, you just start progressing, and it's a natural thing. It shouldn't be a forced kind of thing.”

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