Paris Olympics day 11: Skateboarder Arisa Trew becomes Australia's youngest Olympic gold medallist

Skateboarder Arisa Trew says some magical advice from her coach helped her create "insane" history as Australia's youngest Olympic gold medallist.

A girl wearing a green and gold tracksuit and with a gold medal around her neck holds up an Australian flag behind her

Arisa Trew started skateboarding seven years ago and, three years ago, her 11-year-old self was inspired by the sport's debut at the Tokyo Olympics. Source: AAP / Dean Lewins

Aged 14 years and 86 days, Arisa Trew won the women's park skateboard event in Paris on Tuesday to eclipse Australia's previous youngest medallist, swimmer Sandra Morgan.

Morgan was 14 years and 184 days old when she won gold in the women's 4x100m freestyle relay at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

"I got told by a few people that I'm Australia's youngest gold medallist, which is, like, pretty insane," Trew said.
Trew captured Australia's 14th gold medal of the Paris Games with an audacious final run.

In the bronze medal position before her third and last run, coach Trevor Ward pulled her aside.

"We've got some crazy things that we say to each other and I just said the crazy things that we say - skibidi sigma," Ward told AAP.

According to urban dictionaries, skibidi is nonsense slang without a specific meaning.

But to Trew, it resonated.

"It's like a joke that I have with all my friends because, like, it's just, like, sigma is, like, the top," she said.

"A lot of kids nowadays say that a lot."
Trew then produced a series of daring tricks highlighted by a 540 — one-and-a-half rotations in midair — which thrilled the sold-out crowd at La Concorde in central Paris.

The Cairns-born skater scored 93.18 to pip Japan's Cocona Hiraki (92.63) and Great Britain's Sky Brown (92.31).

Trew started skateboarding seven years ago and, three years ago, her 11-year-old self was inspired by the sport's debut at the Tokyo Olympics.

"I always knew that, like, I wanted to be here and, like, podium and just, like, win," she said.

"Because after the first Olympics, that really inspired me, like, watching all the girls, and it pushed me to just want to be here."

Track cycling

Australia have broken the men's team pursuit world record on day two of the Olympic track cycling program.

That sets up a gold-medal ride on Thursday at 2.33am (AEST) against Great Britain, Australia's long-time fierce rivals in the event.
Australia won bronze in the men's team sprint, beating France in their ride-off.

The combination of Leigh Hoffman, Matthew Richardson and Matthew Glaetzer rode 41.597 seconds to beat France's 41.993 in front of the raucous and parochial home crowd at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome outside Paris.

Also on Tuesday, Australia was sixth-fastest in women's team pursuit qualifying.

Men's basketball

The Boomers fell short in an overtime Olympics quarter-final loss to Serbia.

The world No. 2 side came back from 24 points down to beat Australia 95-90 in overtime and line up a likely semi-final against the United States.
Coach Brian Goorjian said it was the best basketball he'd seen from an Australian side in any of his four Olympic campaigns.

Sport climbing

Young Australian climber Oceania Mackenzie sits fourth after the opening round of the women's boulder and lead, as favourite Janja Garnbret made a big statement.
Oceania McKenzie of Australia competes in the women's boulder
Mackenzie made the ideal start, joining Garnbret as the only climbers to post a perfect score of 24 on the first boulder. Source: AAP / Poupart Julien/ABACA/PA
Competing at her second Olympics, the 22-year-old from Melbourne scored 79.6 in the boulder section.

The event continues with the lead section on Friday night (AEST), with the top eight overall to compete for the medals on Saturday night (AEST).

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3 min read
Published 7 August 2024 6:10am
Source: AAP



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