Sky Brown broke Margery Hinton's 93-year-old record to become the youngest athlete to represent Team Great Britain.
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Sky Brown, 13, has won the bronze medal in the women’s park event at the Tokyo Games – making her Great Britain’s youngest ever medallist. The teenage skateboarder had qualified in second place for the final at the Ariake Urban Park, with a best score of 57.40.
After falling in her first two runs of the final, she nailed her last attempt with a score of 56.47 to finish behind Japanese pair Sakura Yosozumi, 19, and Kokona Hiraki aged 12.
Sky Brown, #GBR‘s youngest ever Summer Olympian, wins bronze at her debut Olympic Games!
She places third after an exciting final in the inaugural Olympic #Skateboarding park competition.@worldskatesb @TeamGB @skyandocean_ pic.twitter.com/PEb8NMW1Ou
— Olympics (@Olympics) August 4, 2021
Yosozumi topped the podium with a score of 60.09, while Hiraki’s 59.04 proved enough for her to claim silver – eclipsing Brown to become the youngest Olympic medallist in 85 years.
After her heats, Brown had told the BBC: “That was insane. It is crazy. It is crazy to be here, and skating with all the girls has been really fun.
“Everyone has been ripping. It is awesome to be here. I didn’t think about the scores. But I am really stoked on that score – very stoked.”
The teenager replaces Sarah Hardcastle as Britain’s youngest summer Games medallist. The swimmer was aged 15 years and 113 days when she won silver and bronze in Los Angeles.
However, Brown’s achievement is all the more remarkable for the fractured skull and broken bones she suffered during an horrific fall in training last year. The teenager posted a video clip of the fall on her Instagram account, which has approaching one million followers, along with the message: “I’m excited to come back even stronger and even tougher. My heart wants to go so hard right now.”
Brown, who was born in Miyazaki, Japan, to a Japanese mother and British father, competed at the US Open in 2016 at the age of eight, and first chose to compete for Great Britain in 2018.
She warmed up for the Games by winning gold in the prestigious X Games last month, although neither of her key Olympic challengers, Okamoto and Hiraki, were present.
Hiraki was first up of the major contenders in qualifying amid the hottest day of the Games so far, with the temperature tipping 32 degrees with 90% humidity.
