13-year-old Momiji Nishiya praised after winning first Olympic women’s street skateboarding gold

13-year-old Momiji Nishiya made Olympic history on Monday morning when she became the first-ever woman to win a gold medal in skateboarding.

The young Japanese star was amongst a trio of teenage medal winners in the street event which is making its debut at the Tokyo 2020 games. She finished with a score of 15.26 at the Ariake Urban Sports Park.

Fellow 13-year-old Rayssa Leal of Brazil took silver while 16-year-old Funa Nakayama, also of Japan, took third. This gave the podium an average age of just 14 years and 191 days.

Nishya’s remarkable win came just a day after her fellow countryman Yuto Horigome also won gold in the men’s street skateboarding event.

Nishya is now the youngest person to ever win a gold medal for Japan at the Olympics but is not the youngest gold medallist ever at an Olympics. That honour belongs to US diver Majorie Gestring who was just 13 years 268 days old. Nishiya, in comparison, is 13 years and 330 days old, however, if second-place Leal had won she would have taken Gestring’s record.

Regardless of what records were and weren’t set, it is still incredible that someone so young could already be the best in the world at their respective sport and Nishya has predictably won a lot of supporters.

Meanwhile, Leal’s first taste of fame and glory, in a viral Vine clip (remember Vine?) has resurfaced.

However, the aforementioned record from Gestring could still fall at these Olympics when Team GB’s Sky Brown, who is just 13 years and 28 days old, competes in the skateboarding park event on 4th August. Unbelievably, she’s not the youngest person in that event. Brown will be up against Japan’s Kokona Hiraki, who is 12 years old and 342 days.