By: Simon
Simon: Who were your favorite skateboarders when you were a kid?
Pierre-Luc Gagnon: When I first started, I was a big fan of Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Colin McKay, who were all young guys on the scene at the time. So, it's pretty cool because now all these guys are my friends and I skate and hang out with them all the time.
Simon: Weren't you skateboarding with Tony when you got hurt this summer? What happened?
Pierre-Luc Gagnon: Yeah, I was practicing tricks on Tony Hawk's ramps. I went too far on a trick, rolled off the ramp and a two-foot wooden box was in the way. I clipped my right knee at full speed. At first, I didn't think it was too bad, but when I took off my knee pad, it was totally bleeding. I went to the hospital and the doctor said I had a broken knee and I'd need to have surgery to prevent it from getting infected because I had pieces of my knee pad inside of my knee. I also had a 30 percent cut in my quadricep which had to get stitched up as well, so I was off for seven weeks.
Simon: Ouch! That hurts just hearing about it. So, what did you do for seven weeks if you couldn't skateboard?
Pierre-Luc Gagnon: It was pretty hard and was really bad timing because it happened two weeks before the X Games. So, I had to go watch everyone skate when I'm used to competing. But my manager set me up with a camera crew and a producer, so I got to interview all the skateboarders at the X Games to get a skateboarder's insight. It was neat to learn how television worked and I got to appear on ESPN's Sports Center each night with Tony Hawk to talk about the Games. It was hard not to skate but it was also fun to interview all my friends and take something good out of a bad situation.
Simon: Do you have any advice about how to avoid getting hurt when they skate?
Pierre-Luc Gagnon: An injury can really happen any time - they can be kind of freak things. But the best advice is to try things that you're comfortable with but don't take things too far. You need to take chances in skateboarding if you're going to get better - but just be smart about what you try.
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