OCEAN CITY, Md. -- Ruby Lilley, a seventeen year old skateboarding phenom will be heading to Paris in just a few days to compete in the Olympics. She'll be bringing the spirit of Delmarva with her, because Lilley was born in Ocean City.
Before she became a renowned skateboarder, she was shredding it at the Ocean Bowl Skate Park.
"I learned my first drop in, learned my first trick there, I have such good memories there," said Lilley. "My older brothers taught me how to skate there and I did ballet classes right across the street from that skatepark, so it was just such an amazing place to grow up."
Garrett Delapp is one of Lilley's lifelong friends and skated with her back when they were kids. He said even back then, he could tell she was destined for greatness.
"That kid was skating the vert ramp before she was 12 years old, no problem, so that was probably a tell tale sign," said Delapp. "I didn't even drop in on that vert ramp until I was like 16, she was doing tricks on it before she was 12."
Lilley now calls California home, but it was that Ocean City vert ramp where she learned she had what it took to make it to the world's biggest skateboarding stage.
"So it's like this gap into the vert ramp and once I had wanted to do it for forever, like for so long I just never though I could achieve it," said Lilley. "When I aired over the gap in transfer and landed it I was like 'I never thought I could do this, this is crazy'. I remember that day just realizing, like, my potential and yeah just the level I could take myself."
Lilley told us on Thursday if and when she wins that gold medal, she is without a doubt coming back to Ocean City to visit the Ocean Bowl Skate Park, where her soon-to-be storied career began.
