‘Once you walk, you can skate. I started at three’
At just 11, skateboarder Sky Brown is ready to be GB’S youngest Olympian, writes Luke Edwards
Sky Brown cranes her neck slightly to catch a glimpse of the person who has been sent to interview her, an inquisitive look followed by the sort of nervous, shy smile she might give to a new classmate on her first day at secondary school.
At the age of 11, that is where most girls of her age would be, but Sky Brown is far from normal. In truth, she is quite remarkable, something she will show a few minutes after this silent greeting inside the Nanjing skatepark in China.
In the moments before she perches her board on the sharp edge of the purpose-built concrete bowl, Sky looks like any other 11-year-old.
She sits quietly, occasionally acknowledging someone she knows, but is mainly just watching those who are going through their routines before her.
She kicks her legs against the bench in time to the music that thumps out of nightclub-size speakers. Just another girl on the cusp of her teenage years.
Yet, there is something different in her look in the seconds before she performs. An intense focus, a mind zoned into competition; into the routine she is about to execute. And then she is off, tiny, fragile but in complete control of the small
board perched on four wheels under her feet.
This is why she is the youngest Nike-sponsored athlete in the world and why she is on course to become Great Britain’s youngest Olympian in Tokyo next summer. Although Sky lives in Japan, her father is British and the family decided she would compete for the country of his birth as she would have a better chance of qualifying for the team.
“I was probably about three years old when I started,” said Sky, each answer accompanied by a wide enthusiastic smile, as her father, Stewart, quietly observes to ensure the questions remain appropriate for an 11-year-old. “I used to watch my dad on his all the time, I would follow him around and as soon as I could, I was on one.
“I wanted to copy him. I think I was taking it seriously from the age of three probably. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t skate, so it must have been really young.
“As soon as I had learned to walk, I was on a skateboard. I don’t know if that’s young, maybe… You can start at any age. You probably couldn’t when you’re a baby, actually, that wouldn’t work because you can’t stand up, you’d fall over, but once you can walk you can skate.
“Skateboarding is fun, that’s all I think about. I still don’t think to myself that is something serious. I just love it. Skateboarding is my happy place, when I’m on the board, it’s everything I want to be doing.
“The most important part of doing any sport, not just skateboarding, is that you enjoy it.
‘The goal is to get the Olympics. I want to show girls what is possible’
I love skateboarding, that is my passion, but my advice would be to try a load of different sports, not just one, and find the one you love.
“If you want to get better at a sport, you have to love it because then you don’t mind all the practising. Be brave and try.”
Sky is constantly trying new things and is attempting to perfect the “kickflip into blunt stall then kickflip out” trick. Tricks like these take hours to master but, for Sky, it remains a hobby more than an occupation. Those around her want to keep it that way, even though she is destined to become one of the faces of Team GB next summer.
“I also surf, if I’m not surfing, I’m skating or I’m in school,” Sky says matter-of-factly. “I don’t know if this is an unusual life, I just skate. I don’t know how many hours I do a day. I spend maybe three months of the year travelling around the world for competitions and I study while I’m travelling.
“When I found out it was going to be an Olympic sport, I was super excited. It’s just great that the sport I love is going to be in the Olympics. For sure, it’s going to help the sport to grow. Millions of people are going to watch it and they might think, ‘You know what, I think I can do that’.
“I don’t know if I’m going to make a living out of skateboarding when I’m older, I hope so, but I just want to do it because it’s fun. Even when I’m competing, I’m pretty calm and relaxed but when it’s on, when it’s my time to go, I’m pretty switched on.
“I’m like, yes … I want to do the coolest trick, I want to do the highest jump. I don’t think about anything else, just me and my skateboard and I block out everything. I can’t really hear the music inside the arena, I’m not thinking about that. Maybe if I thought about it, I would hear it, but I don’t because I just want to focus on what I’m there to do.
“The goal is to get to the Olympics and to experience it all. I want to show girls all over the world what is possible.”
Sky is ranked ninth in the world after her fifth-place finish in Nanjing. Those ranked in the top 12 will compete in Tokyo. The work she puts in before then will be exhausting, but she has no concept of the idea that this is hard. She also has no fear, just the usual concerns of a girl her age.
“I do get annoyed sometimes, mainly with my little brother,” she replies when asked if she ever gets irritated when she cannot do a trick. “I hate insects and he loves them, I’m scared of insects, spiders and lizards and things like that, and he will pick them up and chase me around with them in his hand. He’s seven and he can be annoying. He can make me cross.
“I don’t really get annoyed when I mess up a trick, that’s part of skateboarding. You’re going to fall off, it’s part of the learning process. You know you’re going to fall, you know you’re going to mess it up sometimes, but that’s OK.”
And with that she is off for an ice cream. She is an extraordinary young person, but still enjoys doing all the normal things an 11-year-old should.