Jaime de Lange rockets for SEA Games gold at 95kph — on a skateboard

He'll represent the Philippines at the downhill skateboard event
Nov 21, 2019
PHOTO: @jaimedelange on Instgram

IT TAKES a certain kind of person to get on a skateboard and bomb downhill at speeds you’d usually use on a national highway. What kind of person is that?

“I wouldn’t say it’s craziness.” Jaime de Lange — tall, collected, his hair tucked inside a backwards cap — laughed. “There’s definitely a certain type of person that has the courage to do what most people would consider life-threatening. It’s someone who’s found what they love and won’t let anything stop them, especially not fear.”

De Lange (pronounced "Lang-geh") is one of the Philippines’ representatives to the downhill skating event at the Southeast Asian Games. While most are familiar with the park and street skateboarding events — thanks to your local skaters doing kickflips at a nearby underpass, or the emergence of phenom Margielyn Didal — downhill skating is a different beast entirely.

Downhill skateboarding usually uses a longer, wider skateboard, with bigger wheels and a single-minded inclination towards speed. You start on a slope, and if you’ve never done this kind of thing before, pray all the way down. At the pro level, four racers squat down into the most aerodynamic configuration they can muster, then slice downhill (often on twisty mountain roads) at speeds of a hundred kilometers an hour. Stomach-turning in a car, for sure. What more on a small, four-wheeled board, barely wider than your shoulders, wearing just pads, a leather racing suit, and a helmet?

For the SEA Games, de Lange will be racing on a seaside road in Maragondon, Cavite. It’s a place he’s very familiar with. “I’ve skated that road more than anybody,” de Lange told SPIN Life.

One of the fastest courses he’s ever raced on in the country, it starts with a long downhill straightaway, before twisting into a series of dangerous s-turns. It’s here, de Lange said, that your technical skills come into play. “If you mess up one turn, the next is going to be a disaster.” The bends resolve themselves into what’s called the “bullet” — a sharp turn to the left before heading into a bridge and into the finish line.

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The current record on the Maragondon track is one minute and 27 seconds; his personal best is just one second slower. Other teams, de Lange thought, would kill to have that much practice time on the course.

Four-wheeled frenzy

He’s banking on his experience, not just to get him across the finish, but to score a gold medal... and maybe even beat the track record in the process. De Lange has been skating for over 10 years now, eight of them spent in the downhill racing scene. Last year was particularly hectic. He was a champion at a winter series in Colorado, and was the No. 1 Asian qualifier at the International Downhill Federation. He was also the only Asian rep at the Devil’s Peak Downhill, a 2.4-kilometer thrill ride down the Guanella Pass in Colorado.

Thanks to a sponsorship deal with Blackwater, he's been able to quit his day job and practice his skating full-time. He also has a coach in Harry Clarke, an Australian who is the International Downhill Skating Federation’s world champion. He’s an old friend — back in 2014, Clarke and de Lange would go around Australia, traveling, skating, and camping together. Clarke has visited the Philippines to skate a few times, and as he told the South China Morning Post, “We just kept racing there, it was a really good training ground for us.”

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“They know the road,” de Lange said of his coaching team. “They know us. They know what it takes to win on this track. So [Clarke]’s giving us all the little secrets, thank God.”

While a chill, laid-back skateboarder attitude might veer a little too close to stereotype, de Lange is feeling pretty good about his chances. Unlike his SEA Games competition, he’s not starting from zero — he and his teammates, including Cavite-born Abigail Viloria, have ranked at least in the top 10 at a world event. Even without the home court advantage of constant practice in Maragondon, the other racers, de Lange believes, are simply too untested.

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Barring a secret skateboarding weapon that will suddenly appear in the competing teams and dominate the downhill roads, “our team is looking very very strong,” said de Lange.

And a gold wouldn’t just be a personal honor, or even a national one, as thrilling as that would be. It would put the sport he loves firmly on the map. “Before, people just saw downhill skateboarding as crazy people on a mountain. It was like, ‘Oh, those guys are insane,’” he said. “But finally we get a chance to be seen as a legitimate sport.”

Jaime de Lange might just be crazy enough to pull it off.

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PHOTO: @jaimedelange on Instgram
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