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Tony Hawk takes a spin around Olympics skate park

Wait long enough at any skate park, and Tony Hawk will eventually show up.

The 53-year-old legend is in Tokyo as an NBC Sports correspondent. On Thursday, he decided to take a run through the Ariake Urban Sports Park, site of the skateboarding and BMX cycling events. Here's a look:

Not bad for an old dude!

Hawk is a 12-time world champion who already has a bit of Olympic experience: he performed during the 1996 Olympic Closing Ceremony, doing an extreme sports exhibition with some incredibly '90s outfits:

Hawk officially retired from competition in 2003, but says he continues to skate every day. He's perhaps best known to the world at large as the namesake for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video game. In a nice bit of circularity, Rune Glifberg, who was in the first version of the game, has qualified for Tokyo as part of the Denmark team.

Skateboarding was initially added to the Olympic slate for Tokyo because of the sport's popularity in Japan. But the sport will also be contested at the 2024 Paris Games.

The skateboarding competition will begin with men's street on July 24 and women's street on July 25, followed by women's park on Aug. 3 and men's park on Aug. 4.

Tony Hawk, still able to roll.  (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Tony Hawk, still able to roll. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) (Ezra Shaw via Getty Images)

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com.

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