{"id":111462,"date":"2021-08-04T10:33:34","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T10:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=111462"},"modified":"2021-08-04T10:58:16","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T10:58:16","slug":"japans-yosozumi-wins-battle-of-the-teens-for-olympic-skateboarding-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=111462","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s Yosozumi wins battle of the teens for Olympic skateboarding gold"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tokyo: <\/span>Japan’s Sakura Yosozumi won the women’s park competition to maintain the hosts’ stranglehold on Olympic skateboarding on Wednesday and stop Kokona Hiraki and Sky Brown becoming the Games’ youngest-ever gold medallists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 19-year-old opened the final with a flowing run featuring two 540s, with her 60.09 points proving enough for victory ahead of teammate Hiraki, 12, and Brown, 13.<\/p>\n

“This medal feels unreal — it feels like a dream,” said Yosozumi, as she celebrated at a sun-baked Ariake Urban Sports Park on Tokyo Bay.<\/p>\n

“I hope skateboarding is going to be very popular in Japan because of the strong performances of the Japanese team,” she said, adding: “Now I want to go back home and eat some delicious food.”<\/p>\n

Read:\u00a0Iglesias joins Cuban Olympic boxing greats with Tokyo gold<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Despite missing the title Hiraki, who scored 59.04, achieved the rare feat of winning an Olympic medal before her 13th birthday — the first to do so since French rower Noel Vandernotte in 1936.<\/p>\n

Japan-born Brown, who became Britain’s youngest Olympic medallist, threatened to snatch a dramatic win with a flawless closing routine but she was awarded 56.47 points to take bronze.<\/p>\n

“It was unbelievable,” Brown said of her medal-winning run. “Even right now it feels like a dream. It’s insane.<\/p>\n

“I’m so happy and so thankful and so proud of every one of\u00a0the other girls, too.”<\/p>\n

There was heartbreak for world number one Misugu Okamoto, who missed a medal when she fell on all three runs in the final to finish fourth.<\/p>\n

New audiences<\/h3>\n

Japan also snapped up the men’s and women’s street titles and they have bagged five of the nine medals so far as skateboarding makes its Olympic bow.<\/p>\n

Skateboarding is one of four debut sports aimed at reaching new audiences and in an ultra-young field, only eight of the 20 competitors were out of their teens. The podium had a combined age of 44.<\/p>\n

Both Brown, at 13 years and 28 days, and Hiraki (12 years and 343 days) were bidding to break an 85-year-old record to become the youngest champions in Olympic history.<\/p>\n

They had a shot at bettering American diver Marjorie Gestring, who won 3m springboard gold aged 13 years and 268 days at the 1936 Games in Berlin.<\/p>\n

For Brown it completes a comeback just over a year after a horrific fall in training left her with skull fractures and a broken wrist and hand.<\/p>\n

The accident would have ruled Brown, just 11 at the time, out of the 2020\u00a0Olympics<\/strong>\u00a0if they had not been postponed for a year over the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

“Everyone did amazing, everyone was doing so good,\u00a0I’m so proud of everyone,” she said on Wednesday, paying tribute to her friend Yosozumi.<\/p>\n

“Just being on the podium with my really good friend is just insane.”<\/p>\n

Brown, born to a Japanese mother and a British father, opted to compete for Britain in 2019, saying the team offered a more relaxed approach.<\/p>\n

Also read:\u00a0Tokyo Olympics: Pakistan\u2019s javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem qualifies for final<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tokyo: Japan’s Sakura Yosozumi won the women’s park competition to maintain the hosts’ stranglehold on Olympic skateboarding on Wednesday and stop Kokona Hiraki and Sky […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111462"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111464,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111462\/revisions\/111464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}