During our brief chat on the sidelines of the IOC Executive Board meeting in Lausanne last month, McConnell was again effusive in his praise and insistence that the sport’s Olympic debut would be a triumph rather than a tragedy.

That in itself is nothing new, but this time it came after the skateboarding community had been dealt a considerable blow by the ineptitude of administrators who claim to have the best interests of the athletes at heart.

Just a few days before the IOC’s ruling body convened in the Olympic capital, Panam Sports announced skateboarding had been axed from the programme at this year’s Pan American Games in Lima.

The multi-sport event in the Peruvian capital was not only arguably its most important showcase to a wider Olympic audience since it was added to the Games but it was also supposed to count towards qualification for Tokyo 2020.

The decision to remove skateboarding from the event, one rarely made by sporting officials who have a preference for expansion rather than constriction, was made because World Skate and Street League Skateboarding (SLS) failed to fulfill their requirements on the qualification system for Lima 2019 and its status as an Olympic qualifier.

A not-so-coincidental scheduling of an SLS World Tour competition, where points towards Tokyo 2020 qualification are on offer, and the classification process for the event, which Panam Sports claimed had excluded some of the top skaters, were among the other reasons cited by the continental body.

Yet Panam Sports’ biggest frustration was seemingly the failure to reach an agreement on how Lima 2019 would act as a qualification event for Tokyo 2020.

"Although we had the commitment of World Skate that the Pan American Games would be a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, this was never concrete and we finally received confirmation that it would not be one of the events that offered points towards qualification to the Olympic Games," Panam Sports wrote in a letter to the two bodies.

The qualification system for skateboarding at Tokyo 2020 has been littered with a lack of clarity and, dare I say it, transparency.

World Skate only confirmed the three main qualifying events in the park discipline last week, a little over a year away from the Games in the Japanese capital. For street, the SLS World Tour will play a crucial role but skaters can only compete at these events if they are invited to do so by the organisers, therefore blocking a potential opportunity for athletes from smaller nations to earn enough points to secure a hallowed Olympic spot.

These SLS World Tour events do have an open qualifier format but the semi-finalists and finalists are selected beforehand. Those who have entered the opening rounds have little chance of victory and merely participating is not likely to be sufficient to collect a worthwhile number of points.

The Olympic world skateboarding rankings, which forms the main pathway in deciding which 20 men and 20 women go to the Olympics, collates points earned by skaters at World Championships, World Tour events, five-star competitions and both Continental and National Championships using a weighted system.

The trouble is the SLS World Tour is effectively a closed shop and there are a limited number of countries who have the resources to send athletes to events which carry more significance than others.

What World Skate will be left with is what some detractors believe the governing body, responsible for skateboarding at Tokyo 2020 alongside a dedicated Commission chaired by Gary Ream, wanted all along - a field of entrants for the first Olympic event in the sport which they themselves have effectively chosen.

If Panam Sports is to be believed - and there is not a reason why they should not be - World Skate and SLS are the principle players in the Lima 2019 debacle. Regular followers of the Olympic Movement will not be particularly surprised by this development.

After all, you have an organisation in World Skate which has little experience in organising major skateboarding competitions. Its President Sabatino Aracu is a roller sports official and a former European speed skating champion, while Ream, a controversial figure in the sport, also has a lack of experience in running events.

Neither World Skate nor SLS has appeared especially perturbed by the exclusion of skateboarding from Lima 2019, either.

Speaking on skateboarding being removed from Lima 2019, World Skateboarding Federation (WSF) President Tim McFerran was in no doubt as to who was to blame.

"It’s just poor leadership to make a faux pas like this on the international stage," he told insidethegames.

"This fumble is another example that Mr. Aracu does not have the experience nor is the rollerblading federation capable of managing skateboarding. I hope someone investigates these characters before we are further embarrassed at the Olympics. 

"When is the last time a sport was kicked out of the Pan American Games?

"It’s a stain on skateboarding."

These quotes were put to World Skate for a response but the governing body did not answer.

Some may dismiss McFerran’s views and comments merely coming from a man bitter that the WSF was cut out of the process leading to skateboarding being granted a place at Tokyo 2020 - and there may be an element of truth in that.

His intentions may be questioned but his expertise in staging skateboarding events cannot be disputed. Yet the American will not have any involvement in the sport’s Olympic debut, which seems illogical at best.

It is worth recalling here McFerran was at the centre of a protracted and morose dispute with World Skate, then called the International Federation of Roller Sports, and the Ream-led International Skateboarding which threatened to derail the sport’s inclusion at Tokyo 2020 altogether.

This is where the IOC’s culpability in the whole saga comes in. Despite the governance row, and other concerns such as anti-doping, the IOC was desperate to add the sport to Tokyo 2020 amid its effort to introduce youth-orientated sports onto the Olympicprogramme, a trend which threatens to repeat itself following the provisional inclusion of breakdancing at Paris 2024.

What the IOC is left with is a sport which one of its five continental bodies believes is not well organised enough to feature at its flagship multi-sport event, a worrying development as next year's Olympics draw nearer.

McConnell and others will publicly express confidence in skateboarding and those behind its Olympic debut but it would not be a surprise if, deep down, concern is mounting within the IOC top brass.