50-year-old skateboard legend secures a spot for Paris Olympics

Driving the news: Macdonald barely made the cut for the 22-man field in park skateboarding with his performance at the Olympic Qualifier Series in Budapest, Hungary this past weekend.

• With a bit of luck, his plan to "come up with a line that is the most jam-packed with the most difficult tricks that I've ever done — all together" paid off.

What he's saying: "Getting a qualification place at the Olympics is something I never thought would happen," Macdonald said, per multiple news outlets. "It took a hundred things aligning for me to get the points needed and, luckily for me, they did."

The intrigue: Macdonald grew up in Massachusetts, but his dad is British, which allowed him to qualify for the Great Britain team. He will be competing alongside Sky Brown — a 15-year-old phenom who became the country's youngest medalist when she won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

• That was skateboarding's debut as an Olympic sport.

Catch up quick: Macdonald turned pro in 1994 and competed with friend and icon Tony Hawk, a Carlsbad native.

• Macdonald won his first gold medal in vert skateboarding at the 1996 Summer X Games at 22 and dominated the event in the late 1990s.
• Macdonald holds the record for the most X Games vert titles with 23 medals, according to Great Britain's skateboarding federation. That includes vert doubles events with Hawk.

Fun fact: He was not in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video games, but you might've played with him in MTV Sports: Skateboarding featuring Andy Macdonald on Playstation or the computer game Backyard Skateboarding.