Sky Brown Flying High With A Wicked Take on Sport

Astonishing, twelve-year-old skating prodigy Sky Brown is in the midst of becoming the youngest summer Olympian if she qualifies for the Tokyo Olympics this July. Skateboarding isn’t her only creative pursuit in life; Brown is also a professional surfer, a previous winner of Dancing with The Stars Junior, back in 2018 and has a following of almost 800K on Instagram. 

Self-trained in the skatepark with videos from YouTube and a family background in the sport, Brown started her skating journey at only three years old, as her pre-school was decked out with some ramps. An Olympic snowboard medallist, Shaun White, often used to practise with her and used her knowledge as Brown later featured alongside Simone Biles and Serena Williams in a Nike campaign.

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At only eight years old, the adrenaline junkie partook in the Vans US open, as the youngest contestant and took second place a year later in the Asian Continental Finals. With a Japanese mother and an English father, she was brought up spending half the year in Japan and the other half in Southern California. 

After a lifetime spent in the ocean and on the ramps, Brown has now skated with Tony Hawk; stood third in the Sao Paulo World Skateboarding Championships and is the world’s youngest sponsored athlete with Nike. With over thirty million views on YouTube, Brown vlogs her activities with the family and training on the waves and in the skatepark.

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Only last year, Brown endured a terrible accident with lacerations to her heart and lungs, as well as multiple fractures to the skull, when she attempted a trick off the ramp, but that didn’t prevent her from pursuing her passion. ‘You’re going to fall sometimes; it’s an accident and I don’t want that to stop me from doing what I really love. Skateboarding is literally the best. It just made me a braver girl, so much so. I’m not going to stop.’

A Surfer, skater, dancer and a wizard at social media handles, Brown is already flourishing in her next hobby and is  potentially considering a music career, after learning the  guitar in lockdown. ‘I’ve taken a couple lessons; I’m trying to write my own songs’. She hopes to perform live a recent melody she has written about girl power and she has already gained over 3.2 million views in just seven months since the release. 

Supported by Almost Skateboards and Skateistan, Brown has been part of a non-profit organisation that ‘helps support children – ages 5 to 17, with a focus on girls living with disability and low-income backgrounds – through skateboarding.’ With Brown’s help, the board graphics took inspiration from the time that she taught skateboarding to deaf children and she has used the symbol as part of the design.

Brown’s goal is to ‘show girls that you can do anything.’ The athlete wants to spread the message that if you put your mind and determination into what you love, the world is your oyster. ‘I think that girls can do whatever boys can do, why do boys get to have all the fun?’