Olympic medalists at women’s park skateboarding are 14, 15 and 16.
PARIS – Arisa Trew of Australia turned 14 in May. She won gold.
Cocona Hiraki of Japan is 15. She won silver.
Sky Brown of Great Britain turned 16 last month. She won bronze.
That’s your Olympic women’s park skateboarding podium. Or maybe we should say girls.
The sport took a giant leap forward in technical agility Tuesday on the temporary cement bowl in Place de la Concorde while taking a step back in age. It is believed to be the youngest trio of medalists in a single event in Olympic history.
“We’re pushing boundaries and doing incredible things,” said Brown, a former Oceanside resident who nearly qualified in surfing as well before being derailed by knee and shoulder injuries. “I think we inspired a lot of people today, and a lot of girls especially.”
Heili Sirvio, who lives in Australian and skates for Finland, was fifth. She’s 13.
Naia Laso of Spain was seventh. She’s 15.
Kisaki Hinano of Japan was eighth. She’s 16.
“Hey, look, I turned pro when I was 14,” said Encinitas resident Tony Hawk, the sport’s godfather who attended the final, when asked about the trend toward teens. “I’m not one to talk.”
The gold medalist from Tokyo three years ago, Japan’s Sakura Yosozumi, is 22 now and failed to advance from the preliminaries to the eight-woman final (as did 17-year-old Ruby Lilley of Oceanside).
“It says that if you have the belief and strength and desire, it’s really not that far from you making it,” said U.S. finalist Bryce Wettstein, who lives just down the street from Hawk in Encinitas and is rapidly becoming the grand dame of skateboarding at the venerable age of 20.
Trew was the favorite, finishing first in the Olympic qualifying series and winning gold medals at the recent X Games in Ventura in both the vert and park events. She’s also the first woman to land a 720 (two full revolutions) and 900 (2½) in competition.
But she just blew out 14 candles on her birthday cake. Could she do it on the five-ring stage under the glare of a live global television audience?
“It was almost expected for her to win if she made her run,” Hawk said, “and she did even better than that.”
Like a seasoned veteran, Trew landed a Body Varial 540 in her third and final run – a trick she hadn’t even shown in practice – to score 93.18 and vault over Hiraki and Brown into first.
“I knew it was all or nothing,” said Trew, who fell on her first run. “I had to land one really good run just to make the podium, so I let everything out. … I’m just so excited and happy right now. It’s so crazy right now.”
All three medalists have Japanese heritage. Hiraki is from Japan. Trew has a Japanese mother and Welsh father. Brown has a Japanese mother and English father but lives in Southern California, most recently in San Clemente, and regularly trains in North County.
Hiraki and Brown repeated their placements from Tokyo. So did Wettstein, who was sixth again.
Her response? Write a song on her ukelele, of course.
“What are the chances you’re in two Olympics and get the same place both times?” Wettstein said. “Both times I always wanted fifth instead of sixth. You know what? I’m going to write a song called, ‘Fifth and sixth,’ and say, ‘What’s the difference between the two? Nothing.’”
What she really wants is third, both because that’s her favorite number and because it comes with a medal. She nearly got there, skating more aggressively than usual and recording the second-best score (85.65) in the prelims behind Hiraki.
Then she ripped off an 88.12 in her opening run of the final that momentarily put her in second place.
She fell on her second run and chased the podium on her third, landing everything cleanly before her final trick, a Cab Disaster that requires a full revolution while landing the board on the lip. But she pumped her fists after her previous trick, which made her more upright and probably cost her some speed that resulted in, well, disaster.
Land it and she likely scores higher than her 88.12. Whether it would have been high enough to beat Brown’s 92.31 in third, we’ll never know.
Wettstein is an eccentric, eclectic figure in a sport filled with them. She wore a tiara with pink and purple butterflies. Her eye shadow was light blue with sparkles. She serenaded the media with her ukelele. The other night, she ordered a hamburger and sushi at dinner, then put the sushi inside the burger.
She provided perspective as only she can about finishing sixth, again.
“It’s a different word than disappointment,” Wettstein said. “I always think about the medal and want it and dream about it. But I don’t feel disappointment. I feel happiness, and I feel this tenaciousness and this will to want it again. I try to not look at what I could have done but what is next. First, I want to accept it, because acceptance is first.
“Yes, I’m a little disappointed because I wanted to land that last run. But I’m always feeling happiness and gratitude.”
Meanwhile, at the medalists’ news conference, the 14-year-old Trew was asked to provide her perspective about the competition.
“Everyone,” she said, “was shredding.”