Olympic Skateboarding Makes History
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Olympic Skateboarding Makes History

By Elizabeth Gibson for The J-Pop Exchange

August 3, 2021

Skateboarding at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games was already set to be a historic event, seeing as it’s the first time skateboarding was represented at the Olympic Games. But the ages of some of the competitors made it even more historical.

In the men’s street skate competition at the Ariake Urban Sports Park, Japanese skateboarder Yuto Horigome managed to snag the gold.

After a brief series of blunders in the first couple of runs, Horigome ultimately flipped his board in the air, sailed over staircases and glided on rails. On the fourth trick of the final run, he accomplished a most difficult one: a "nollie 270 noseslide." After taking off, he flipped his board, then slid it down the rail on its nose.

Afterwards, he jogged off with a fist pump and a smile.

After it was announced he had won the gold, Horigome told reporters that practicing in the streets and parks in the Tokyo neighborhood where he won the gold medal (although he now resides in Los Angeles, California) is what fueled him to become an Olympic champion.

The silver medal went to Brazil’s Kelvin Hoefler, and the bronze went to the USA’s Jagger Eaton.

In the women’s street skate competition, held a day after the men’s competition was held, more Japanese and Olympic history was made.

Japan’s Momiji Nishiya became the second youngest champion in summer Olympics history, aged 13 years and 330 days, by winning the inaugural women’s skateboarding street competition.

Similar to Horigome during the men’s street skate competition, Nishiya fell on her first two attempts in the best trick portion of the finals before bouncing back to surge into the lead.

Nishiya landed her final three tricks for big scores, all of them necessary to claim the gold. She is now considered the youngest Japanese gold medalist. And she’s close to being the youngest gold medalist of all time in the history of the Games, although that title belongs to Marjorie Gestring, a diver who won at age 13 years and 268 days at the 1936 Berlin Games. Nishiya is closer to her 14th birthday.

Nishiya shared the winners podium with two other teenagers.

Brazil's Rayssa Leal, also 13 years old, placed second and 16-year-old Funa Nakayama, also from Japan, placed third in the competition.

It "could very well be the youngest Olympic podium ever," the official Olympics news outlet said. Bringing more youthful energy to the Games was arguably one of the main goals of the Tokyo Olympics, and skateboarding obviously was successful in doing that. Other sports have been sprinkled with dashes of young athletes -- namely swimming and diving -- but nowhere else can claim talented youthful athletes like skateboarding can.

The sport is one of several new games at the Olympics this year including surfing, three on three basketball and rock climbing.

The Olympic skateboarding competition will resume with the park event on Aug. 4 and 5.

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