Thirteen-year-old skateboarder Sky Brown won bronze in the women’s park skateboarding event at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday. The teen is Great Britain’s most youthful Olympic medalist ever and the third 13-year-old to win an award for skating at the Tokyo Games.
Japan’s Momiji Nishiya became one of the most youthful Olympic gold medalists ever subsequent to winning the women’s street competition last week. In that occasion, an additional 13-year-old, Brazil’s Rayssa Leal, won silver.
Brown, who went professional at 10, has experienced childhood at the center of attention and is very famous via social media, with more than 1 million adherents on Instagram. She likewise has a YouTube channel with her sibling, Ocean, and turned into a web sensation at 4 years of age when her father, Stu, posted a clip of her skateboarding on Facebook, BBC News reports.
She has acquired the consideration of sponsors, similar to Nike, who signed her when she turned professional in 2018. She has additionally showed up in advertisements with other incredible competitors, Simone Biles and Serena Williams, and won “Dancing with the Stars: Juniors” in 2018, as indicated by BBC News.
Brown, who is positioned third on the world, was the first female to effectively land a frontside 540 at the X Games, a yearly outrageous sports competition. She was only 11. The stunt includes pivoting one and a half times on a skateboard in mid-air.
Brown additionally prefers another outrageous game – surfing. She regularly gets up ahead of schedule to surf with her father and sibling in California, where she lives half of the time.
She parts her time between Oceanside, California and Miyazaki, Japan. Japanese is her first language yet her dad, Stu, is English, BBC News reports. Olympians with at least two nationalities can pick which country they address at the games. Sky decided to address Great Britain.
She has never had an professional coach. All things being equal, she watched videos of skateboarders and attempted to reproduce their stunts. She has additionally skated with Tony Hawk.
“My dad built a mini-ramp in our backyard for him and his friends to skate on. He would skate every day after surfing. He didn’t actually want me to skate, but it was my favorite toy. I would steal his board. He would skate every day with his friends and I’d always get in the way. I would not want to walk anywhere, just skate,” she said, according to Olympics.com.
During her journey to the Olympics, Brown experienced a few injuries falling a ramp during preparing last year. She cracked her skull, broke her left arm and wrist, and had gashes on her heart and lungs.
Furthermore, not long before the Olympic qualifier she broke her arm. She competed wearing a defensive cast and came in first, BBC News reports.
It appears nothing can deter the teen. “I like to do tricks that boys are doing because I feel like some boys think girls can’t do what boys can do. I want to go to the same height as them and push the boundaries for girls,” she said, Olympics.com reports.
Skating is new to the Olympics this year – and surprisingly a preteen competitor has medaled. 12-year-old Kokona Hiraki of Japan procured silver in the women’s park event.