apanese athletes have now won gold in both the women's and men's street skateboarding competitions, as the sport makes an unforgettable impression on the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
The future is now.
In the inaugural Olympics street skateboarding competition, two of the youngest competitors at the Olympic Games won the gold and silver. The gold medallist, NISHIYA Momiji, wrote her name into the history books with a score of 15.26. Her final three runs (4.15, 4.66 and 3.43) were enough to secure top spot on the podium, as she beat Brazil's Rayssa Leal, also 13, and 16-year-old NAKAYAMA Funa to gold in what is believed to be the youngest Olympic podium ever.
Nishiya, who won a silver medal at the 2021 world championships in Rome, has now secured the ultimate prize in sport after her unique blend of trickery, skill and consistency saw her triumph in a tense final that went all the way down to the final run.
One of the reasons people were so thrilled about skateboarding being included on the Olympic programme was the youthful excitement it would bring to the Games. Now with 13-year-old gold and silver medallists, that youth has proven its ability to shine in ways few could have predicted on the greatest sporting stage of all.
Rayssa Leal, who is not only Brazil's youngest-ever medallist but also Olympian, won silver with a score of 14.64 with Nakayama the bronze medallist with 14.49. But the day belongs to Nishiya, whose name goes down in the record books as the first female skateboarder to strike gold at an Olympics and the second skateboarder, after men's winner HORIGOME Yuto's heroics yesterday, to win gold in the sport for Japan.
