SKY, 13, IS YOUNGEST GB MEDALLIST
Schoolgirl, 13, creates history
WHEN she fell to earth a year ago and hit her head so hard that she lost consciousness, Sky Brown could have quit.
When she twice fell in the Olympic final yesterday attempting the same trick, she could again have chosen another way out.
Nobody would have thought badly of her. Brown is 13 years old, after all.
But Britain’s youngest summer Olympian did not get to where she has by taking the easy option.
Against her parents’ wishes she came out of hospital last summer and climbed straight back onto her skateboard.
And at sun-baked Ariake Urban Park, on the biggest day of her sporting life, her response to two falls was to again confront adversity straight on – and become Britain’s youngest Olympic medallist.
As she prepared to drop in for that final run, dad Stu assured her: “It’s just a contest, if you fall it doesn’t define you”.
Next in her ear was Sakura Yosozumi, the soon-to-be crowned champion. “You’ve got it, Sky,” she said. “I know you’re going to make it.”
Brown pushed off, accelerating down into the bowl and 45 seconds later, having finally nailed that elusive ‘kickflip indy’ trick, the bronze medal was hers. “I’m so stoked. I can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s unbelievable, super sick, like a dream.”
If that sounds like the language of Generation Z, it’s because Olympic skateboarding really is child’s play. The combined age of the entire podium for the ‘women’s park’ event was 44.
“I really hope I inspire some girls,” said Brown, whose final score of 56.47 put her just behind the Japanese pair of Yosozumi, 19, and runner-up Kokona Hiraki, who is 12.
Brown added: “I feel like people think, ‘I’m too young, I can’t do it’, but if you believe in yourself, you can do anything.”
Born to an English dad and Japanese mum, she divides her year between Japan and America’s west coast, and plans to compete in surfing as well as skateboarding at the 2024 Paris Games, when the surfing will be held in Tahiti.
It’s not all fun, though. Her father said: “She’s straight back to school now. And we’ll take her off social media for a little while.”
I’m stoked, it’s sick, like a dream