Cocona Hiraki in action during the women’s park skateboarding event at the Paris Olympics
Japanese silver medalist Cocona Hiraki poses for a photo after the women’s skateboarding final during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024 in Paris, France.
Silver medalist Cocona Hiraki of Japan (left), gold medalist Arisa Trew of Australia and bronze medalist Sky Brown of Great Britain take a selfie after the women’s skateboarding final during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, in Paris, France.
17:42 JST, August 7, 2024
PARIS — At age 15, Cocona Hiraki won her second consecutive Olympic silver in women’s park skateboarding on Tuesday, scoring 92.63 points. Australia’s Arisa Trew took gold with 93.18 points.
Hinano Kusaki, 16, finished eighth with 69.76 points. Tokyo gold medalist Sakura Yosozumi, 22, finished 10th in the preliminary rounds and failed to advance to the final.
“I was able to give everything I wanted and also won a medal,” Hiraki said after collecting her second silver medal on Tuesday.
She was 12 years and 11 months old when she won her first silver medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, becoming the youngest medalist in Japanese Olympic history. Now 15, Hiraki has returned to the podium with greater refinement.
Hiraki’s signature trick is the nosegrind, which uses the truck between the front wheels to grind on a ledge. In the finals, Hiraki was leading after the first run, using the trick at a difficult angle while free skating around the course for 45 seconds. Although the second run was unsuccessful and she dropped to third place, she increased the difficulty of the tricks to score higher points in the third run.
After the run, she hugged other skateboarders in honor of the achievement, saying, “I was able to complete the run which I’ve never done before, even in training.”
Since the Tokyo Games, airs and rotations have become mainstream in women’s park events. To “perform my way and get the result,” she extended the distance of her grind and increased the number of variations. She had practiced repeatedly and thoroughly on uneven edges and can now perform her signature trick anywhere.
Her movements became more refined because she “wanted to be recognizable as Cocona Hiraki from every angle, and to be seen as cool.”
She remembers competing in the Tokyo Games and thinking, “What a great success the Olympics are.” And she said she thought, “Getting to the final and winning a medal were both miracles.”
Three years after the Paris Games, Hiraki had emerged as a medal-winning skateboarder who was tenacious in her style and could mesmerize spectators with her skateboarding skills.
