A flawless final run stacked with crazy tricks and flips delivered gold for Australia’s youngest ever Olympic medallist. Editor at Large Louise Evans gets head spin watching the drama.
When you win an Olympic gold medal aged 14, what do you do with the rest of your life?
It’s a question that Arisa Trew, a kid who just loves skating, is now pondering after the baby of the Australian Olympic team became the nation’s most junior gold medallist.
“It is crazy,” the mini Olympic champion said. “I’m so excited, so many emotions at once. I fell on my first run which was just annoying. My coach (Trevor Ward) said you have got to go all out and go for it – all or nothing. When I realised I had won I was in so much shock. So excited and happy. I was nervous.”
Trew is also the second Australian with a Japanese mother to win an Olympic gold medal in Paris following the feats of Saya Skakkibara in the BMX racing.
Trew’s mum Aiko was parkside and speechless when her daughter sealed gold with her final run in the skateboarding park event, after falling in her first run, a feat that lifted her from bronze to gold.
Trew’s father Simon, who was clutching his wife for support in the stands, was overcome by the cool head of his young Cairns-born girl, who moved to the Gold Coast aged two and started skating aged seven because the surf was too cold.
“I can’t believe it, it’s crazy. I don’t know what to say,” Simon said. “She just loves it and wants to have fun. It’s absolutely crazy. I’m blown away.
“She likes going out and having fun and being active and having a good time. We’ve always encouraged her to be active with her friends – skating and surfing.
Simon said Arisa had been revelling in her first Olympic experience and was obsessed with collecting Olympics pins – amassing a collection of about 60.
Trew qualified for the final in sixth position with 82.95 points and described her Olympic debut in the heats as “really cool”. “I want to be the best for Paris and I’m hoping to get a medal – that’s my biggest goal,” she said,
In the final Trew was up against seven other finalists who all get three 45‑second runs to impress the judges on a concrete bowl course with ramps, quarter-pipes and bumps staged right in the heart of Paris on the Place de la Concorde nestled between the Seine and the Louvre.
Trew did show some nerves in the first run when she fell to register a low-scoring run. Her biggest rivals were the silver and bronze medallists from Tokyo Japan’s Cocona Hiraki and Great Britain’s Sky Brown.
After coming unstuck on her first run, she executed a clean second, shooting into silver medal position with a score of 90.11, behind Hiraki.
But before the second round was complete Trew had been pushed down into bronze by Brown.
Going into the final round she knew she had a medal and she followed her coach’s advice to “go for it”. She stuck all her ticks and surged into gold medal position with a chicken-skin performance that earned her an unassailable lead of 93.18 points. Hiraki secured silver with 92.63 and Brown bronze with 92.31.
“When I landed my third run I was so stoked,” she said. “I knew I landed the run that I wanted to land and when I came out I was just waiting for the score. Then it popped up and I was like, ‘Yes, I’m secure on the podium’. I really wanted to win. Even if I didn’t win I was so excited because it’s my first Olympics and sharing a podium with these girls and just competing with everyone has been super fun.
“Paris has been really cool, everything about it has been really fun. I loved skating in this park because it was really fun, and it had really cool features in it. I’ve been staying in hotel with Ruby (Trew – her unrelated Australian teammate) and a chaperon because we’re too young to stay in the Olympic Village.”
Trew started making history after becoming a student at the Gold Coast-based Level Up Australia Academy, which combines schooling with elite skating coaching.
“We do three-hours education and then we go to the skatepark and hang out and skate together. I like to do a lot of spins,” she said.
Trew became the first female skateboarder to land a 900 – 25 years after American Tony Hawk landed the same trick for the first time ever at the X Games in San Francisco. It marked a watershed moment in women’s skateboarding.
“When I started skating there was not a lot of girls so I started with the boys. When I was 10 there were more girls,” she said.
She made international headlines when she was named 2024 Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year after becoming the first female to land a 720 trick in competition (completing two full rotations in mid-air), a move also made famous by the “Birdman” Hawk.
This is how Trew explains a 720. “It’s when you come up the ramp backwards and spin two 360s in the air and come back down forward on your board.” Got it?
She arrived in Paris as a medal favourite after winning the Olympic qualifying series in Shanghai earlier this year, beating her friend Hiraki, the 15-year-old world No1, as well as Japan’s Tokyo Olympic champion Sakura Yosozumi, 22.
“My parents promised me a pet duck if I won a gold medal,” she said. “I want a duck because they are really cute and I can take it on walks and take it to the skatepark. I can’t get a dog or a cat because we travel too much but I think I duck would be a bit easier.”
Australia’s youngest Olympic medallists and gold medallists
• Arisa Trew – 14 years 86 days (Skateboard Park 2024, gold)
• Sandra Morgan – 14 years 183 days (swimming Melbourne 1956 Olympics, gold)
• Karen Moras – 14 years 288 days (swimming Mexico 1968 Olympics, bronze)
• Leisel Jones – 15 years 19 days (swimming Sydney 2000 Olympics, silver)
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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