Aurelien Giraud: “Just because I was a world champion it doesn’t mean I’m done”

Aurelien Giraud was three minutes from his home in Lyon when he passed the local golf club.

Having practised it a little with his father when he was younger, the skateboarder decided then and there to pull in and have a go for a laugh with a friend. Expecting his usual excellence on the first strike of the ball, the result was a little less fun and a bit more ego-damaging.

“I couldn’t do it,” the 26-year-old says earnestly, recalling the moment, “and it bothered me.”

Though on the outside the two sports might seem to be worlds apart there are some core similarities.

Golf, like skateboarding, takes place outdoors, is social but mostly individualistic, and at the heart of it, is a pursuit of technical mastery determined by near-microscopic increments. It’s a little wonder why Giraud, one of the prevailing forces on the men’s street skating contest scene, connected with it so quickly.

Almost instantly after his struggles, the Frenchman went to the clubhouse and signed himself up.

“I said I would come every day until I can swing well. And, well now,” he continues with a smile, “I can swing well.”

The anecdote, though something of a side quest to his skateboarding, speaks to the wider transformation journey Giraud has been on in the last year.

After winning the 2023 world title in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, he has found himself coming up short in World Skateboarding Tour finals.

Despite soaring through the early rounds, when the heat has been on in the last eight, he hasn’t been able to deliver. And with increasing attention surrounding him as the home hope for Paris, reconnecting with that positive determination to persist when something is frustrating, is something he says, he’s been working on.

“In Rome… I missed the final. I think I wanted to outbid my run, which wasn’t necessarily the right thing to do. And once I knew I’d missed, I knew I couldn’t win. As a result, I was a bit disgusted and acted a bit like a capricious child, you could say, because I knew I couldn’t win and so I said it’s no use if I do it.

“Now, I know that you always have to go for podiums,” the skateboarder says.

“I’ve learned that and I think that, honestly, today, I could say that it’s not so bad because I’ve been world champion. It just goes to show that you have to keep working to keep concentrating, not let go and not give up. Just because I was a world champion it doesn’t mean I’m done.

“You can fall and get back up but sometimes falling even further is better. You have to rebuild yourself again.”