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| Brighton Zeuner has won two X Games gold medals and and a Vans Park Series World Championship title (Photo by=HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] Sixteen-year-old Brighton Zeuner has already won some of skateboarding's biggest titles. BBC Sports reported that last 2015, aged 11, she was the youngest female athlete to ever compete at the X-Games.
She began competing professionally in 2016 and went on to win gold at the inaugural World Skateboarding Championships. In 2017, she made more history as the youngest champion in X-Games history, winning women's park gold the day after her 13th birthday. A year later, Zeuner became the youngest back-to-back X-Games gold medallist.
Fast forward to 2021, and it comes as no surprise that she is one of the favourites for a medal when she represents Team USA at this summer's Olympics as skateboarding makes its debut in Tokyo. Among those is Britain's Sky Brown, who is set to become the youngest British summer Olympian of all time. Brown, 13, is currently ranked third in the world, behind only Japan's Misugu Okamoto and Sakura Yosozumi. Zeuner missed six months leading up to the Games after tearing the main ligament in her ankle in one of the Olympic qualifiers and has slipped down the rankings. She heads to Tokyo ranked 12th in the world. Right now, skating is still very much a hobby for Zeuner, but featuring in the Olympics has paved the way for it to become a long-term career.
