Women’s park skateboarding stars to watch at Paris 2024 Olympics
The women’s park skateboarding event at Paris 2024 promises to be a stellar one with the Olympic incumbents set to face a host of challengers at the Place de la Concorde.
Looking to defend her Olympic title will be Yosozumi Sakura who understands better than most the size of the task ahead.
Since the Games in Japan, women’s park has seen a serious uptick in progression fronted by vert skaters Arisa Trew and Raicca Ventura, who have crossed codes into the bowl with roaring success.
Trew in particular, has been in overdrive in raising the standard. In 2023 the Australian became the first woman to land a 720 in competition. In May this year, she went up another level becoming the first woman – again – to land a 900. While vert is not a discipline in the Games, Trew’s leaps forward speak to the competitor within and just what Yosozumi must overcome if she wishes to become the first women’s park skater to land back-to-back golds.
But it won’t just be from those coming up that the Japanese skater will have to pay notice to. Hiraki Kokona and Sky Brown – the silver and bronze medallists from Tokyo – have also improved.
At the first two Olympic qualifiers in the build-up to Paris, Brown finished in first place. A sabbatical to try her hand at securing a surf quota for Paris sandwiched between injuries then handed to the top podium spot to Hiraki who wasted little time claiming, winning the world title in Rome last October. Only once, in the entire Olympic qualifying period, has the 15-year-old missed a podium and on that occasion, back in March 2023, she came fifth.
Brown subsequently returned to the fold for the last Olympic qualifier in Budapest and, despite nursing a recently torn MCL, the Briton showed little signs of rust as she clinched second place in the final showdown.
How she will perform now with her recent dislocated shoulder setback and with Trew at the peak of her powers will be the greatest point of skateboarding intrigue in Paris.
Also worth watching are Brazilian Raicca Ventura and Spaniard Naia Laso (returning from a collarbone injury), both of whom have had podium finishes on the road to Paris 2024.