S
SEARCH
M
SW
Collect News Data

Sky Brown hopes to inspire other girls to take up skateboarding

:Headline: Sky Brown hopes to inspire other girls to take up skateboarding:
The 12-year-old will become Britain's youngest summer Olympian at the Tokyo Games.
Sports Mole

"Stoked" at the prospect of becoming Great Britain's youngest summer Olympian, 12-year-old Sky Brown is on a mission to use her platform to inspire more young girls to pick up a skateboard for the first time.

"I'm just excited to be in the Olympics," said Brown, who will be 13 years and 11 days old when she steps out in Tokyo, eclipsed only by figure skater Cecilia Colledge, who was 11 at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Games.

"Everyone around the world will be watching, and I feel like if I'm the little one in there going big, hopefully they (girls) will think, 'maybe I can do it', and I can show the world how fun and creative skateboarding is."

Such lofty ambitions sit comfortably with Brown, who will be joined in the two-person Team GB skateboard team by the New York-born Bombette Martin, a relative veteran at the age of 14.

Brown has lived most of her young life in the spotlight, having won the junior version of the US show 'Dancing With The Stars' aged 10 in 2018, and for some time harboured hopes of also being selected for the Olympics in surfing, a sport in which she first competed on a professional level at the age of eight.

She counts snowboarding superstar Shaun White as a close friend and neighbour in Malibu, and is a vocal advocate for the Skateistan charity project, which uses the sport to facilitate access to education for kids in under-privileged communities across the world.

Sky Brown will be joined by Bombette Martin in Team GB's first skateboarding team (Peter Byrne/PA)

"If you go to a skate park it is mostly boys there," said Brown, who was born in Miyazaki in Japan, to a Japanese mother and British father. "Now there's more girls, which is cool, but I think girls are sometimes scared to be the only girl there and to be judged by the boys.

"But I feel like watching the Olympics and seeing how many girls are doing the sport and how good and fun it is, if they watch the Olympics they're going to really want to do it."

As well as being "stoked", Brown described the feeling of qualifying for the Olympics, which was helped by her bronze medal in the park event at the 2019 World Championships in Sao Paolo, as "a crazy feeling" and "more than a dream come true."

“Everyone around the world will be watching, and I feel like if I'm the little one in there going big, hopefully they (girls) will think, maybe I can do it, and I can show the world how fun and creative skateboarding is.”
- Sky Brown

She added: "Everyone around the world will be watching, and I feel like if I'm the little one in there going big, hopefully they (girls) will think, maybe I can do it, and I can show the world how fun and creative skateboarding is."

Brown's achievement is all the more remarkable given the shocking injuries she sustained in a skateboarding accident last June, which left her with multiple fractures in her skull, and a broken left arm and fingers.

"It was a pretty bad accident," Brown recalled. "I was knocked out for 12 to 16 hours. It was a really bad time – I couldn't see my brother for the whole time, and only one of my parents could come in.

Sky Brown hopes more girls will be inspired to take up skateboarding (PA Media)

"But I recovered really fast, and getting back on the board, I wasn't scared at all, I was excited. I actually felt stronger after that. I wanted to do more things – I did the mega-ramp after that."

Brown is too young to have many memories of the Olympics, or to have cultivated any particular sporting role models, although she is looking forward to meeting sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, saying: "She's sweet and so good, and I love her."

And whilst she appreciates the magnitude of appearing at the Olympics, and the extent to which it can facilitate her ongoing quest to inspire, Brown's bottom line is simply excitement at getting another opportunity get back in a bowl.

Sky Brown attended the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards in 2019 (Ian Rutherford/PA)

"I'm just thinking about blasting, going high, getting my kicks and getting my line, and having style," Brown said.

"You'll see lots of unexpected things. It's going to be super-fun to watch."

body check tags ::

amp_article__453558 : Collect and Make Data not in DataBase  : 
last updated article - 2021-07-01 14:51:29:
html db last update - 2021-07-01 14:46:15 :

ex - 7200 : read : write cache and make html

Click here for more stories about Sky Brown

Share this article now:

Subscribe to our Newsletter


Transfer Talk Daily
Match previews - twice weekly
Morning Briefing (7am UTC)
UC
Get the latest transfer news, match previews and news direct to your inbox!
Read more about Sky Brown Other
Premier League Table
TeamPWDLFAGDPTS
1 00000000
2 00000000
3 00000000
4 00000000
5 00000000
6 00000000
7 00000000
8 00000000
9 00000000
10 00000000
11 00000000
12 00000000
13 00000000
14 00000000
15 00000000
16 00000000
17 00000000
18 00000000
19 00000000
20 00000000
Scroll for more - Tap for full version

Subscribe to our Newsletter


Transfer Talk Daily
Match previews - twice weekly
Morning Briefing (7am UTC)
UC
Get the latest transfer news, match previews and news direct to your inbox!

Loading ...

Failed to load data.

Premier League Table
TeamPWDLFAGDPTS
1 00000000
2 00000000
3 00000000
4 00000000
5 00000000
6 00000000
7 00000000
8 00000000
9 00000000
10 00000000
11 00000000
12 00000000
13 00000000
14 00000000
15 00000000
16 00000000
17 00000000
18 00000000
19 00000000
20 00000000
Scroll for more - Tap for full version
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
X

We value your privacy

A part of our GDPR compliance we need to ask for your consent. We and our partners use technology such as cookies on Sports Mole to personalise content and ads, provide social media features, and analyse our traffic. Click below to consent to the use of this technology on Sports Mole.