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Sky Brown might have missed her chance this time around to represent Great Britain in two different sports at the Olympics, but as she returns to the world stage, the expectations are set high. Three years ago at Tokyo 2020 she became Team GB’s youngest-ever summer Olympian, and the team’s youngest medallist.
There are not many athletes who qualify for the biggest event in their sport at just 12 years old, but that is what Brown achieved in May 2021, and the expectation has only grown since then. Now 15, Brown has over a million Instagram followers, more than 2 million on TikTok, and her and brother Ocean’s combined YouTube channel has over 300,000 subscribers. She also has her own Barbie doll.
Born in Miyazaki Japan to a Japanese mother and British father, Brown has spent a large amount of her childhood in California, surfing and skateboarding.
In 2019, an 11-year-old Brown became the youngest-ever Nike-sponsored athlete in the world, having first stepped onto a board when she was just three and became a professional athlete at 10.
Brown could have represented Japan, but chose the country of her father’s birth, at one point saying the decision was because of the British Skateboarding Association’s more relaxed approach.
When she was chosen for the 2021 Games, Brown became the youngest British summer Olympian, breaking a record set by Margery Hinton, who was 13 and 43 days when she competed in the 1928 Games.
Unlike many Olympians, Brown was already an internationally-known athlete when she travelled to Tokyo. There, she won the bronze medal, after falling in her first two runs, she scored 56.47 in here final attempt.
It was an impressive year for the British youngster, who won the X Games gold medal in July 2021, and was awarded BBC Young Sports Personality of the year. Brown then retained her X Games title the following year.
In 2023, she won gold at the World Skateboarding Championship, become Britain’s first skateboarding world champion.
This time around she will be 15, and despite missing out on the surfing qualification, the weight of expectation will weigh heavily on her young shoulders.
“I don’t feel pressure, honestly, having done it in Tokyo already,” she said just months before the Paris Games.
“It just makes me want to show my new tricks even more. It’s just exciting for me.
“Skating is really not about the medals. It’s about the show you put on for everyone. I always just want to show my best, and the beautiful part of skateboarding.”
It is that enthusiasm that has seen the nation take her to their hearts, and those extra three years can only have added to her skillset.
Despite only just being old enough to have done her GCSE’s, Brown has already launched a book called the Life-Changing Magic of Skateboarding, a part biography and part guide to the sport, and she does not seem fazed by any aspect of her lifestyle, even the numerous media events.
Brown will have to be at her best in Paris, having missed a chance to visit French Polynesia and compete in the surfing competition in Tahiti, but will have support behind her as she pushes for a second Olympic medal before her 17th birthday.
