TOKYO (Reuters) - For street skaters, run-ins with neighbours and security guards are annoyingly commonplace. In Japan, where Yuto Horigome won the first ever Olympic gold awarded in skateboarding, the discipline is still widely considered as a public nuisance.
In a perfect example of skating's odd position in Japanese society, countless white posters that read "SKATING BANNED" were duck taped on the fence surrounding the Ariake Urban Park on Tokyo's waterfront, shielding locals from the world's most famous athletes competing in, well, skateboarding.