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Sky Brown defied a dislocated shoulder to win bronze in the women’s skateboard park final at La Concorde and become a double Olympic medallist at the age of just 16.
Brown, who suffered the injury shortly before she was due to travel to Paris last month, revealed it popped out again when she fell in the last of her three qualifying runs, and had had to be helped from the bowl in evident discomfort.
“I was shocked because I think it popped out really quick,” said Brown. “It was a weird pain, it just felt throbby and sore. But I felt the adrenaline and I was hyped up so I didn’t really think about it.”
Brown, already a relative veteran in her discipline, which included 11-year-old Chinese skater Haohao Zheng, effectively ensured a repeat of the bronze medal she won in Tokyo at the age 13 when she nailed a score of 92.21 in the second of her three final runs.
Slightly hampered by the wise instruction from her father Stu to play safe due to her injury, Brown’s score was not enough to usurp the 14-year-old Australian Arisa Trew, who told gold with her final run score of 93.18, or silver medallist Cocona Hiraki of Japan.
Nevertheless it was a remarkable performance from Brown, who overcame a serious knee injury last year and also had to deal with the disappointment of failing to realise her dream of qualifying in both skateboarding and surfing for the Paris Games.
“I wanted to bring out another few tricks but dad didn’t want me to,” added Brown. “I wanted to keep a little safe and I didn’t want to hurt it even more. I did the best I could do.
“I feel like this made my story, with my injuries and being one spot off qualifying in the surf event, so they were not-so-fun times but I am so happy to be back on the Olympic stage.
“I feel like this journey has been crazy since Tokyo, but for Paris just watching the level change like that, knowing we all had to push boundaries together, it’s just been really cool.”
I was shocked because I think it popped out really quick. It was a weird pain, it just felt throbby and sore. But I felt the adrenaline and I was hyped up so I didn't really think about it— Sky Brown
Brown, whose recent shoulder injury, as well as a serious knee muscle tear in April, had dampened gold medal expectations following her world title win in Sharjah last month, had earned easily the biggest cheers in the Paris Urban Park when she dropped in for a first qualifying run that secured a safe and solid 84.75.
Clad in all black despite the stifling heat, Brown slid off on her next run before a second fall briefly threatened to end her Olympic experience.
A tearful Brown was steered through the media mixed zone and vowed to “fight through” the pain in search her second Olympic medal in less than two hours’ time.
Brown’s experiences have highlighted the inherent danger of her sport, but also her undoubted mettle. Little over a year before the start of the Tokyo Games, she suffered a fractured skull as well as breaking bones in her left wrist and hand.
So it ought to have been little surprise when she shrugged off her discomfort, sitting in fourth place in the final, before summoning her biggest score to temporarily lift her into second, behind the pink-helmeted Trew.
Brown, who failed to improve her score in the final run, clung onto silver as two subsequent competitors, American Bryce Wettstein and Japan’s Hinano Kusaki, could not go better, before Hiraki, the final competitor, repeated her silver medal from Tokyo, scoring 92.63 to nudge Brown down to third.
“I wanted more,” admitted Brown, although there was little evident disappointment at the end of another vibrant women’s competition that has certainly not diminished her ambition to claim that elusive double Olympian status in Los Angeles in four years’ time.
“I want to go to LA and be a double Olympian in surfing and skating,” Brown said. “I’ll go home now and do some surfing because I’ve really been missing that recently. I want to go surfing but first I’ve got to have an operation and get my shoulder fixed.”
