Aged 11 she survived a near fatal skateboarding crash; at 12 she fractured her skull; at 13 she won bronze at Tokyo; at 15 she tore her knee and at 16 – little more than a week after dislocating her shoulder – Sky Brown took bronze again in the park skateboarding at Paris.
Brown and the 15-year-old Japanese skater Cocona Hiraki became the youngest athletes to win a medal at two Olympics in the park event at La Concorde on Tuesday, after being narrowly beaten by the 14-year-old Australian Arisa Trew to the gold.
A bronze could have been seen as a disappointment for a skater who has added skill upon skill to the already impressive repertoire that won the same medal in Tokyo three years ago. But after six months of fighting to recover from a serious knee injury, after a week when she battled to even take part in this competition, and after a morning that had left her struggling to hold back tears of pain, this felt less like a missed opportunity, than one seized. Sometimes it is the taking part that counts – at least if you end up on the podium.
“It was a little scary falling on my shoulders going to my last run, and then going to the final,” said Brown after the competition. “I had to send it. But I did fight through it, and gave it my best.”
By mid-afternoon on Tuesday, at the close of the qualifying round, it was far from clear that Brown – despite securing her place in the final by finishing in fourth – would be able to come out for the final round of the competition, never mind get a medal.
After a relaxed opening turn around the park she induced panic in her team when she came off her board twice in the next two runs. The first time she got up with a shrug, but the second saw her fall from the board awkwardly onto the shoulder she had dislocated just days before the start of the Games.
She stayed on the floor of the bowl park for a moment and looked to be in pain, before her father Stuart rolled her to the edge of one of the park’s slopes and she climbed up the side.
After the qualifying round, she admitted the fall had been “definitely scary”. Asked if she would be able to compete in the final she said: “All I can do is push through, I think at this point, so I’m just gonna fight through it. For Team GB, for the girls, for my family, my supporters, you know, we’re gonna fight.”
And fight she did. It was only after the competition had ended that her father confirmed that she had fallen on her injured left shoulder, and felt it briefly pop out of its socket. “I ran down to her and she said: ‘Daddy, it’s come out again,” said Stu Brown. “I told her not to worry about it. And then as she got up, she said: ‘Oh, I think it’s gone back in again.’ She was in pain, but she didn’t want to show it too much because she was scared of being pulled [from the competition].”
After her teammate Lola Tambling did not qualify for the final (“They’re gonna be buzzing,” she said of the support she’d got from her home town of Saltash. “It’s gonna be mad when I go back home.”), all medal hopes were resting on Brown’s narrow shoulders.
After an hour and a half of being put back together by the Team GB physiotherapists Brown once again looked relaxed as she came out for her first run of the final. A strong first run scored 80.57, but saw Brown fall again after the timer had sounded.
Thankfully this time she got to her feet quickly, but while other competitors used the pause between runs to get into the bowl to practice, Brown remained out of sight. She came out for an audacious second run which saw her flipping her board – known as a kickflip indy – over the volcano generating gasps from the crowd and launching her into second place with 91.60. For her third she did it all again, just better sneaking her score forward to 92.31 and putting the silver medal into touching distance.
Then Hiraki, with the final run of the tournament, pulled off another astonishing performance to score 92.63. With just 0.32 of a point between them, it was Hiraki in silver and Brown in bronze – with both competitors within a point of the gold medal winner.
Speaking after taking bronze, her earlier pain replaced with her trademark 100 watt smile, Brown said the crowd had pushed her through. “I felt adrenaline and I was just hyped up but I wanted to bring out more,” said Brown, admitting that her father had advised her not to do more extreme tricks for her final run so as not risk further injury.
“I wanted to bring out another trick, another few tricks but Dad didn’t want me to,” she said. “I wanted to keep it a little safe and didn’t want to hurt it even more. I did the best I could do.”
Speaking before these Games the 16-year-old expressed her disappointment at not also qualifying for the surfing. She would next time, she promised: “I know I’ve got LA [2028] ahead so I’m going to aim for that and get two gold medals for GB.”
After a performance this tenacious – don’t put it past her.
