Will These Crazy Skateboarding Tricks Win Japan Olympic Gold?

Horigome, who won the first men’s street skateboarding gold at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago with four high-scoring tricks, leads a class of Japanese male skateboarders that thrive on innovation.

He and his peers set themselves apart by creating unique strategies that combine different styles. Many of these techniques are so difficult that competitors cannot replicate them.

In another example, Japanese athlete Sora Shirai’s “cane” in a recent Olympic qualifier combined two complex tricks, “caballerial” and “cane.” The judges awarded a score of 97.07, which at the time was the highest score for cheating in such an event.

It’s hard to pinpoint why Japanese skaters have dominated professional skateboarding for the past six years or so, or why they’re so good at tricks. Team Japan won the gold medal in men’s and women’s street skateboarding in Tokyo.

“It’s like the popular definition of pornography: You know it when you see it,” said Jonathan Russell Clark, sports historian 2022, about Team Japan’s technical prowess.

“You can see that they are doing something that other skaters can’t do, even if you can’t explain it and you don’t know about the technology,” he said.

Japan’s women’s skaters showed the same strength of Olympic qualifiers as the men: They scored high in tactics but remained unchanged in sprinting. But women are not at risk of changing the rules, as they are doing better than their competitors in both parts of the competition.

But a goal change introduced after the Tokyo Olympics could end that dominance – and their ability to win medals at the road skating event.

If the men’s “street” competition at the Tokyo Olympics had been entered using the new Paris format, Brazil’s Kelvin Hoefler, who finished second, would have won gold.

Horigome would have to settle for football.

The road event consists of two 45-second sprints and five independent tricks over an obstacle course. Tactics are scored based on the best two independent tactics of the skater, and risk and innovation are often rewarded.

To be successful in the sprint category, a skater must acquire many tricks – not difficult ones – continuously.

At the Tokyo Games, if an athlete performed well in individual techniques but scored low in runs, both runs’ points were automatically erased. That’s what happened in Horigome’s case.

But in Paris, one of those runs will count towards the skateboarder’s score no matter what.

World Skate, the international governing body for Olympic skateboarding, changed the format for Paris after convening a committee to analyze the results from Tokyo. The general feeling was that the format did not adequately capture the full range and diversity of the sport, said Luca Basilico, World Skate’s director of skateboarding.

Ian Michna, publisher of the sketch magazine Jenkem, said he welcomed the new initiative.

“Running shows how consistent a skater is, how he skates in style, and it gives you a broader view of what he’s capable of,” he said.

But that could pose challenges for Team Japan because its run during recent Olympic qualifiers has been flat, said a New York Times review of results data.

Even as Japanese skaters find better independent tactics, a Times analysis found, their racing results lag behind those of their top competitors, especially those from Brazil and the United States.

American and Brazilian male street skaters were generally stronger than their Japanese counterparts when running because they performed more tricks, more freely and consistently, across the obstacle course.

In contrast, Japanese skaters often start and end their run sequences with high-skill tricks that impress fans but risk hurting their overall scores.

Here is an example from the post-Olympic competition in Rome two years ago.

Horigome only performed seven tricks during his run, and failed to land one of his most difficult ones.

But Nyjah Huston, a decorated American skater, performed more than 10 tricks on various obstacles. Some of those tricks were easy, but his overall score was high.

It is possible that the format change will not affect Team Japan’s performance in Paris.

Basilico, who represents World Skate, said the change was “made to represent skateboarding the way we believe it should be represented,” not to target specific athletes.

Liz Akama, a member of the Japanese women’s team, said she was not worried about the score change.

Akama said that his tactics for scoring high scores are self-inflicted. The change in format has allowed him to focus more on perfecting tricks that are within his reach, including those that can be used in his running.

“Even though the rules have changed, everyone is adapting,” he said.

The bottom line: Horigome won an Olympic qualifier in Budapest last month in part by delivering nine separate runs that looked similar to Huston’s 2022 performance in Rome.

Shirai and his Japanese teammate, Ginwoo Onodera, came second and third.

Several experts have predicted in interviews that Team Japan will succeed in Paris because the country’s best street skaters have proven their versatility in competition after competition.

Horigome also won this year’s Tampa Pro, a street event where points are based entirely on speed.

“I think they will do very well again, and they will,” said Kevin Harris, a former Canadian champion with deep ties to the Japanese skateboarding community. “They produce the best skateboarders in the world.”