Japan Dominates, Rayssa Leal Wins Second Olympic Medal In Women’s Skateboard Street

The primary skateboarding occasion of the Paris 2024 Olympics is within the books, with the ladies’s road closing concluding Sunday night in Paris.

In a break from the wet climate that kicked off the Video games throughout Friday’s Opening Ceremony—and compelled the postponement of Saturday’s males’s skateboard road closing to Monday—Sunday was sizzling and sunny in Paris.

It was an extended day for the eight girls who made Sunday’s closing out of the 22 who began the prelims at midday Paris time. After a three-hour qualifier throughout the hottest a part of the day, the ultimate kicked off at 5:00 p.m. CEST.

Every Nationwide Olympic Committee (NOC) may qualify as much as three athletes in every of the 4 Olympic skateboarding occasions (males’s and ladies’s road and park).

Japan, which boasted three of the highest 4 skaters on the earth within the lead-up to Paris, maxed out its allotted quotas, and all three girls—Coco Yoshizawa, 14; Liz Akama, 15; and Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist Funa Nakayama, 19—made it by means of to the ultimate.

Rounding out the sector of eight within the closing had been China’s Chenxi Cui, 14; Australia’s Chloe Covell, 14; the USA’s Paige Heyn, 16; Brazil’s Rayssa Leal, 16, who was the Tokyo 2020 silver medalist; and the USA’s Poe Pinson, 19.

Tokyo 2020 gold medalist Momiji Nishiya, 16, was ranked seventh on the earth forward of Paris 2024, however as Yoshizawa, Akama and Nakayama had been ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 4, respectively, Nishiya couldn’t earn a qualifying place for Paris.

Equally, Japan’s Yumeka Oda, 17, was ranked fifth and in addition bumped out of qualifying place.

Yoshizawa and Akama took gold and silver in Paris with scores of 272.75 and 265.95, respectively.

With Yoshizawa’s win, Japan has now taken gold on this occasion on each events it’s been held on the Olympics.

Leal took bronze to turn into, for now, the one feminine skateboarder with two Olympic medals. (Park skate boarders Kokona Hiraki and Sakura Yosozumi of Japan and Sky Brown of Nice Britain may be part of Leal in that rarefied air if they will make the rostrum of their occasion subsequent week.)

Yoshizawa and Akama had been the highest two qualifiers, respectively, in Sunday’s girls’s road prelims. Coming into Paris 2024, they had been additionally ranked No. 1 (Yoshizawa) and No. 2 (Akama) on the earth.

Leal was ranked No. 3, making for an Olympic podium that completely adopted the world rankings previous to the Video games.

Within the press convention following the ultimate, Yoshizawa and Akuna had been requested why they assume Japan is so robust in girls’s skateboarding.

“The explanation why we’re very robust is the Japanese individuals are diligent and earnest and make efforts towards their targets and goals,” Akama stated by means of an interpreter.

“The surroundings in Japan is excellent for practising and in addition the individuals who aren’t nearly as good, we are able to train one another, and we could be stronger,” Yoshizawa stated, additionally by means of an interpreter.

At simply 16, Leal is already a veteran of the ladies’s road self-discipline, and he or she’s developed a status as a better. Firstly of the fifth and closing greatest trick makes an attempt, Leal was sitting off the rostrum in fifth.

However she placed on a clinic, completely touchdown her kickflip Smith grind to bump up into third place with a rating of 253.37, which not one of the 4 skaters not already on the rostrum may prime.

The gang taking within the girls’s road closing on the Place de la Concorde was simply composed of one-third Brazilian followers, and when Leal scored 71.66 on her first of two runs after which a 92.88 on her second trick try and an 88.83 on her fifth, they erupted with cheers, waving a sea of Brazil flags.

Leal had solely landed one trick, which meant she would wish to land the fifth efficiently to have any likelihood of creating the rostrum.

She hadn’t practiced the kickflip Smith grind on the Olympic course. “I used to be sort of afraid; I gained’t deceive you,” she stated with a smile. However she consulted together with her group and, although it “wasn’t straightforward,” she determined to go large or go residence on her closing try.

Does Leal really feel that she performs higher beneath stress?

“Effectively, I feel that I can carry out properly beneath stress however not all the time, really. However after I want a trick, I all the time get it, and this time was no totally different,” Leal stated by means of an interpreter. “It’s true that someway I put myself beneath stress, as a result of I wish to give my greatest and carry out properly and present all of the tips I’ve.”

Akama wasn’t capable of land her fifth trick try, which secured the gold medal for Yoshizawa.

The scoring construction for road skateboarding has modified from what was used on the Tokyo Olympics.

ForbesHow Skateboarding Is Scored At The OlympicsBy Michelle Bruton

In Tokyo, skaters additionally had two 45-second runs and 5 trick makes an attempt, with every scored on a scale of 0 to 10. The entire rating was the sum of the perfect 4 scores from any of the runs or trick makes an attempt.

In Paris, nevertheless, every run or trick is scored between 0 and 100. The entire rating components within the skater’s greatest run out of two and two greatest trick makes an attempt, for a complete attainable rating of 300.

The rule change was made partially to make sure that each runs and trick makes an attempt depend towards an athlete’s closing rating. (On the Tokyo Video games, as an example, males’s road gold medalist Yuto Horigome had his two lowest scores in his two runs, so his closing rating was based mostly solely on tips.)

The boys’s road closing will start with prelims at midday CEST on Monday, July 29.

Ladies’s Skateboard Avenue Outcomes

1. Coco Yoshizawa (JPN): 272.75
2. Liz Akama (JPN): 265.95
3. Rayssa Leal (BRA): 253.37
4. Chenxi Cui (CHN): 241.56
5. Poe Pinson (USA): 222.34
6. Paige Heyn (USA): 163.23
7. Funa Nakayama (JPN): 79.77
8. Chloe Covell (AUS): 70.33