17 Apr, 2025 @ 11:51
1 min read

Skater grandpa: meet the 88-year-old thrill-seeker shredding Bilbao’s skating bowls

BASEBALL cap on, elbow pads strapped, and a mischievous grin in place — Juanjo Urbizu isn’t your typical pensioner.

At 88 years old, this Spanish daredevil is tearing up skateparks and turning heads as he drops into concrete bowls with the confidence of a teenager.

Locals in Bilbao’s gritty Begoña neighbourhood watch in awe as Urbizu –  clad in joggers and a tucked-in tee – glides across graffiti-covered ramps like it’s second nature. Before every session, he carefully clears the skate bowl of pebbles. Safety first, even when you’re nearly 90.

Juanjo only took up skateboarding at 70, swapping snow sports for something cheaper but just as thrilling. Now, he skates twice a week and charms bar-goers with tales of his latest tricks.

In an ageing Spain, where over half the population is 44 or older, Juanjo’s story is a breath of fresh air. While experts fret over the future of the welfare state, Urbizu is proof that old age doesn’t have to mean slowing down.

To seniors thinking of joining him on the ramps? “Take it slow,” he warns. “Concrete hurts way more than snow. And don’t forget the full gear.”

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Dilip Kuner

Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988.
He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press.
At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park.
In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here.
He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency.
He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later.
Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

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