Japanese world champion Yuto Horigome yesterday held his nerve to be crowned skateboarding’s first Olympic gold medalist after winning a tense street competition in Tokyo.
The 22-year-old, who grew up just a stone’s throw from the Olympic venue, landed three huge tricks in a row to eclipse American favorite Nyjah Huston, who imploded to finish seventh.
In searing heat at Ariake Urban Sports Park, Horigome finished with scores of 9.35, 9.50 and 9.30 for a total of 37.18, with Brazil’s Kelvin Hoefler second and US skater Jagger Eaton third.
Photo: AFP
“This is special because it was held in Koto City, where I was born,” Horigome said. “For me it’s very meaningful, very inspiring.”
There was disappointment for Huston, the much-hyped multiple world champion, who ended with four straight falls in the tricks section as he wound up second-last in the final.
Competition took place in front of rows of empty blue seats at the purpose-built arena, with fans barred from most Olympic events over COVID-19 concerns.
It was the first of four gold medals to be handed out in skateboarding’s Olympic debut, with women’s street to be contested today followed by the men’s and women’s park competitions.
“There’s an extra pressure here,” Huston said. “I’ve been skating pro-contests for 15 years now, but there’s Street League, X Games, but if you compare that to the Olympics there’s no comparison.”
Huston flirted with disaster in the heats, when he fell on his first run and botched his first two of five attempts at a one-off trick. He fought back with a 9.13 and 8.96 to make the final in third place, with Horigome sixth.
In the final, Horigome had his head in his hands after a mistake on his first run, and the world No. 2 fell twice in his second run before recovering his poise in the tricks section.
The free-flowing Japanese reeled off four scores of more than 9.0, interrupted by a fall on his second trick, tracked by Hoefler and Eaton as Huston faltered.
POKEMON TROPHY
Horigome, who is now based in the US, said he would hang the medal with his others — on his Pokemon toy.
“First of all I want to show it to my friends and family who supported me,” he said. “Afterwards I’ll keep it in my house. I have other medals on my Pokemon, so maybe I’ll keep it next to them.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier