Skateboarder Sky Brown is still in line to become Great Britain’s youngest ever summer Olympian after the new dates for the Tokyo Games were confirmed.
Brown, who is not 12 until July, was due to comfortably surpass the record held by swimmer Margery Hinton, who was 13 years and 14 days old on the day of the opening ceremony for the 1928 Games in Amsterdam.
However, the coronavirus outbreak means the Games have been postponed until 2021, with the IOC confirming they will now take place from 23 July – 8 August next year.
That means Brown will be 13 years and 10 days old when the Olympics are declared open, beating Hinton’s record that has stood for almost a century by just four days.
Britain’s youngest Olympian is Cecilia Colledge, who was just 11 years and 73 days old when she competed in the women’s single skating competition at the 1932 Winter Olympics.
Brown is still to cement her place at the Games, with the World Skate federation confirming it will reschedule qualifying events that had been postponed because of the pandemic.
However, Brown, who was born in Japan, is currently ranked third in the world, and with the top 12 skaters qualifying automatically for the sport’s first ever Olympic competition, looks likely to make the cut.
