The women’s skateboarding street competition was guaranteed to get a new Olympic gold medalist because the reigning champion could not make her national team roster this year. That is the strength of the Japanese female skateboarding program, and it was on display again on a sunny day in Paris when Coco Yoshizawa struck gold.
Yoshizawa led after the preliminary round and threw down the highest-scoring trick of the afternoon to rally past teammate Liz Akama and win the gold medal at La Concorde on Sunday.
"I knew that if I wanted to win, I had to go for the most difficult tricks," Yoshizawa said. "I didn't aim for second or third place, I aimed for the top spot with my most difficult moves."