Sky Brown

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Sky Brown
スカイ・ブラウン
Personal information
Born (2008-07-12) 12 July 2008 (age 15)
Miyazaki, Japan
Years active2016–present
Japanese name
Kanjiブラウン 澄海
Kanaブラウン スカイ
Sport
CountryGreat Britain
Sport
Park
Medal record
Women's park skateboarding
Representing  Great Britain
Olympic Games
Bronze medal – third place 2020 Tokyo Park
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 2023 Sharjah Park
Bronze medal – third place 2019 São Paulo Park
X Games
Gold medal – first place 2021 California Park
Gold medal – first place 2022 California Park
Dew Tour
Gold medal – first place 2022 Des Moines Park
Silver medal – second place 2021 Des Moines Park

Sky Brown (スカイ・ブラウン, Sukai Buraun, born 12 July 2008)

surfer who competes for Great Britain. She is the youngest professional skateboarder in the world, and has also won the American TV programme Dancing with the Stars: Juniors. She represented Great Britain at the 2020 Summer Olympics, where she won a bronze medal in the park event, making her the country's youngest ever medallist. She won the park event at the 2023 World Skateboarding Championship
.

Personal life

Sky Brown was born in Miyazaki, Japan. She is the older sister of Ocean Brown. Her mother, Mieko, is Japanese and her father, Stuart,[4] is British.[5][6][7] In Japanese, her given name is written in kana as スカイ (Sukai) or in kanji as 澄海 (Sukai); as is standard for non-traditional Japanese names, her family name is written only in kana script.[8][9]

Her British father lived in the United States for several years before moving to Japan.[10] Brown lives in Miyazaki, but spends around half the year in the US.[10] Her family are skateboarders, and her preschool had a skate park.[11] She has a skating ramp in her back garden,[12] as there are no skate parks in her home area of Takanabe, Miyazaki.[9] Aside from skateboarding, Brown is interested in surfing.[6][12][13]

Career

Brown does not have a skateboarding coach; instead she learns tricks from YouTube.[10] She sometimes practises with Shaun White, who won Olympic snowboarding medals.[10] Brown is sponsored by Nike, making her the youngest Nike-sponsored athlete in the world.[14] She has featured in a Nike campaign alongside Serena Williams and Simone Biles.[6] She is also supported by Almost Skateboards and Skateistan.[11]

In 2016, at the age of 8, Brown took part in the Vans US Open, making her the youngest person ever to compete at the event.[5] She fell off her skateboard in a heat.[11] In 2017, she came second in the Asian Continental Finals,[15] and she finished in the top 10 of the 2018 Vans Park Series.[15] In 2018, at the age of 10, Brown became a professional athlete, making her the youngest professional skateboarder in the world.[11] The same year, she won the US TV show Dancing with the Stars: Juniors.[5][11][12] In February 2019, she won the Simple Session event in Tallinn, Estonia.[5][15]

In March 2019, Brown announced that she would be competing for Great Britain, having previously said that she would compete for Japan.

British Skateboarding Association.[11] That year, Brown also came third at the World Skateboarding Championship,[10] and became the first female to land a frontside 540 at the X Games.[10] She finished fifth at the X Games skateboarding event.[8] Brown came third at the 2020 Park World Skateboarding Championships in Brazil.[16]

Brown was one of five Britons attempting to qualify for the

halfpipe ramp which left her with several skull fractures and a broken left wrist and hand. She was flown to a hospital and was reported as being unresponsive on arrival. Her father said afterwards that she was "lucky to be alive", whilst Brown herself said it was her worst fall yet. Nevertheless, she remained determined to push boundaries and compete for gold at the Tokyo Olympics.[18] In April 2021, Brown said that she was also considering trying to compete in surfing at the delayed 2020 Olympics.[19]

In June 2021, Brown was selected to represent Great Britain in skateboarding at the 2020 Summer Olympics.[20] Brown was the youngest British Summer Olympian ever, at the age of 13, beating Margery Hinton who was 13 years and 43 days when she competed in the 200 metre breaststroke event at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[21] Brown was not the youngest competitor at the Games: Syrian table tennis player Hend Zaza and Japanese skateboarder Kokona Hiraki were younger.[22][23]

In July 2021, she won the X Games women's skateboarding park gold medal.[24][25]

Brown won the bronze medal in the women's park skateboarding event at the 2020 Summer Olympics and became Great Britain’s youngest ever medal winner, at the age of 13 years and 28 days.[26] She fell in her first two runs at the event and scored 56.47 in her final attempt. Brown was not the youngest medallist at the Games, as 12-year-old Kokona Hiraki of Japan won silver in the same event.[27] Later in the year, it was announced that some of Brown's skateboards would be displayed at the renovated Young V&A in London.[28]

In 2022, Brown retained her X Games title, and also won the Dew Tour event for the second year in a row.[29] She won the park event at the 2023 World Skateboarding Championship,[30] thus becoming the first British skateboarding world champion.[31]

Awards

On 19 December 2021, Brown won the 2021 BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award; she was shortlisted again in 2022.[32][33] In April 2022, she won the Comeback of the Year award for 2021 at the Laureus World Sports Awards.[34]

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
2018 Dancing with the Stars: Juniors Herself Contestant; winner
2022 The Tiny Chef Show Herself Episode: "Snap Pea Stir Fry"
2022 Hell's Kitchen: Battle of the Ages Herself Episode: "Clawing Their Way to the Top"

See also

References

  1. ^ "Olympic World Skateboarding Rankings – Park, Female". World Skate. 30 June 2021. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  2. ^ Licata, Alexandra (16 June 2019). "東京オリンピック出場に期待! 10歳の天才スケートボーダー、スカイ・ブラウンとは" [Expected to participate in the Tokyo Olympics! About 10-year-old genius skateboarder Sky Brown]. Business Insider (in Japanese). Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  3. ^ Bull, Andy (4 August 2021). "Sky Brown, 13, becomes Britain's youngest Olympic medallist with skateboard bronze". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 August 2021. At half-past 10 on Wednesday morning, Sky Brown, 13 years and 28 days old, tipped forward on her board and dropped into the scalded concrete bowl of the Olympic skate park.
  4. ^ "Who are Sky Brown's parents? The life of Britain's youngest Olympian". 22 July 2021.
  5. ^ a b c d "Sky Brown: The 10-year-old British skateboarder aiming to make history at Tokyo". BBC Sport. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  6. ^ a b c d "Sky Brown: Skateboarder, 10, chooses Great Britain Olympic team". CNN. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  7. Olympics.com. 2 August 2021. Archived from the original
    on 2 August 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  8. ^ a b "世界が注目、マルチなスーパー小学生" [The world's attention for elementary schoolchild]. Kyodo News (in Japanese). 11 September 2019. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  9. ^ a b "小学生が東京五輪目指す" [Elementary school student aims for the Tokyo Olympics]. Mainichi Shimbun (in Japanese). 4 August 2019. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Reynolds, Tom (13 February 2020). "Sky Brown: Meet the 11-year-old girl set to become Britain's youngest summer Olympian". BBC Sport. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Licata, Alexandra (10 June 2019). "Meet Sky Brown, the 10-year-old skateboarder on pace to shake up the 2020 Tokyo Olympics". Business Insider. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  12. ^ a b c Williams, Rebecca (6 January 2020). "Skateboarder, 11, hopes to become Britain's youngest ever summer Olympian". Sky News. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  13. ^ McCombs, Dave; Katanuma, Marika (5 June 2019). "Can This 10-Year-Old Girl Save the Olympics?". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  14. ^ Edwards, Luke (10 September 2019). "Sky Brown, 11-year-old skateboarder and would-be Olympian: 'I want to show girls all over the world what is possible by making it to Tokyo 2020'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  15. ^ a b c d Ingle, Sean (13 March 2019). "Sky Brown: 10-year-old skateboarder set to compete for Team GB at Olympics". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  16. ^ Wilson, Sophie (11 March 2020). "7 Sportswomen To Follow On Instagram Ahead Of The 2020 Tokyo Olympics". British Vogue. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  17. ^ Morse, Ben (2 June 2020). "Skateboarder Sky Brown, 11, hospitalized after horrific fall". CNN. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  18. ^ "Sky Brown: Skateboarder, 11, 'lucky to be alive' after horrific fall". BBC Sport. 2 June 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  19. ^ "Olympics: Sky's the limit for British skateboard prodigy Brown". Reuters. 1 April 2021. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
  20. ^ "Sky Brown: 12-year-old skateboarder picked for GB Olympic team". bbc.co.uk. 9 June 2021. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  21. ^ "Sky Brown set to become Britain's youngest summer Olympian". ESPN. 10 June 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  22. ^ "Hend Zaza, 11-year-old Syrian table tennis player, qualifies for Olympics". The Guardian. 5 March 2020. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  23. ^ "Skateboarder Kokona Hiraki to become Japan's youngest Olympian". The Japan Times. 25 May 2021. Archived from the original on 26 November 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  24. ^ "Sky Brown wins gold in Women's Skateboard Park". X Games. Archived from the original on 25 June 2022. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  25. ^ "Women's Skateboard Park Medal Table 2021 X Games". X Games. Archived from the original on 25 July 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  26. ^ "GB's Brown, 13, wins skateboarding bronze". BBC Sport. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  27. ^ "Sky Brown: who is the Team GB skateboarder? Where is Sky Brown from and why is she competing for Great Britain?". The Scotsman. 4 August 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  28. ^ "Olympic star Sky Brown's skateboard to be star attraction at £13m Young V&A museum for children". i. 29 September 2021. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
  29. ^ "Skateboarder Sky Brown Reclaims Her Crown As Women's Park Queen At Dew Tour Des Moines 2022". Forbes. 30 July 2022. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  30. ^ "Skateboarding World Championships: Britain's Sky Brown wins park gold". BBC Sport. 12 February 2023. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
  31. ^ Sinclair, Luke (13 February 2023). "Sky Brown, 14, becomes the first British skateboarding world champion". Herald.Wales. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  32. ^ "Young Sports Personality 2022: Sky Brown, Jessica Gadirova & Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix on shortlist". BBC Sport. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  33. ^ "Sports Personality 2021: Sky Brown named Young Sports Personality of the Year". BBC Sport. 19 December 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
  34. ^ "Laureus World Sports Awards: Emma Raducanu, Sky Brown and Bethany Shriever all winners". Sky Sports. 25 April 2022. Retrieved 25 April 2022.

External links