A nine-year old British-Japanese girl, who is the world’s youngest professional skateboarder, is aiming to take part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when the sport will feature for the first time.
Sky Brown, from the city of Miyazaki in southern Japan, has a Japanese mother and a British father, and has been skateboarding since she was a toddler. In 2016, she became the youngest competitor in the prestigious Vans United States Open Pro Series, where she competed against women twice her height.
“I’ve thought about the Tokyo Olympics a lot. I would like to go to the Olympics while I’m young – I don’t really want to be 16 or something going to the Olympics. I want to be young and show every girl that you can do it, just go for it, even though you’re little,” she told Agence France Presse.
Ms Brown’s parents, Stuart and Mieko, have created online videos that show their daughter, along with her six-year old brother, Ocean, performing their skating stunts, which include jumping off a bus.
“Before she was three I didn’t want her to get on a skateboard,” said her father. “You have a little girl and you want to wrap her in cottonwool.”
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But it was the one toy she kept going back to.
Skateboarding will feature in the Olympics for the first time, along with surfing, climbing, karate and baseball/softball. Its inclusion has caused controversy, not among traditionalists, but among those who regard Olympic approval as compromising skateboarding’s counter-cultural origins.
Thousands of skateboarders signed a petition unsuccessfully begging Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, to reject it as an event.
“Skateboarding is not a ‘sport’ and we do not want skateboarding exploited and transformed to fit into the Olympic programme,” the petition read.
“We feel that Olympic involvement will change the face of skateboarding and its individuality and freedoms forever.”
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Other have expressed fears that a cannabis culture prevalent within skateboarding could conflict with the Olympic drug-testing regime – and with Japan’s harsh penalties for possession.
“I’m wondering how it’s going to work as far as the drug testing is concerned, because some guys skate really well on weed and if they have to stop smoking for one competition it might really affect their performance,” said Tas Pappas, 42, the eminent Australian skateboarder, who told ABC television that competitiveness was also in contradiction to skateboarding ethics.
“To a lot of people it [the Olympics] will seem cheesy,” he said.
“This country versus that country is not the … skate culture. When you meet a bunch of skaters you don’t feel like it’s us versus them, it’s just a bunch of guys getting together and want to have a skate.”