In the Place de la Concorde, in the heart of Paris, there is a theme park for urban sports. The imposing Obelisk is a beacon of history and tradition around which the revolution is growing. Various open-air venues host 3×3 basketball, cycling and other sports. freestylehe breaking and skateboarding, the four horsemen of street exercise. Among the sun-baked crowd appears a smiling 15-year-old girl, with clear eyes and a curious look, extremely shy, a skateboard under her arm and green socks with Yoda’s face and ears sticking out on the sides. It is Naia Laso, the youngest of the 382 athletes representing Spain at the Games and an Olympic finalist.
These skaters are the heirs of those California surfers who in the fifties invented something to do on dry land when they could not ride the waves, and they will return to the cradle at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Naia Laso did not start skating coming out of the water, but at the age of seven in a park in Bermeo, where she was born, imitating her older brother, first with his long board, the longboardthen with one of her own size. And she turned out to be a prodigy, champion of Spain at 12, fifth in the world at 14, Olympian in Paris at 15 in a modality that debuted in Tokyo and that seems like a school class.
Olympic skateboarding is divided into the following modalities: street (railings, stairs, drawers, street roots), in which Natalia Muñoz competed last week, out of the final; and the park (slides, pools and ramps). The classification consists of three rounds of 45 seconds each in which the skaters They are scored on the speed and height of their actions, the ability to deal with all the obstacles and tricks. A fall is devastating.
Naia Laso sweeps the floor in the first and third attempts, but in the second she scores a record of 82.49 points, enough to enter a final that eight of the 22 reach. ridersthe first time that Spain has celebrated it. But the feat has consequences. A pull in the back precisely in that second lap makes her limp. There are barely two hours left to play for the medals and the doctors give her an injection. The puncture helps her to participate, not to aspire to the podium. Two falls give way to a last attempt in which pride hides the pain, and she is seventh in the Games with 86.28 points. The winner is the 14-year-old Australian Arisa Trew (93.18), second is the Japanese Cocona Hiraki, 15 (92.63), and the bronze goes to the British 16-year-old Sky Brown (92.31). They play for glory as if they were adults, but it is a game between children. In Tokyo, the gold in street Japan’s Momiji Nishiya celebrated the feat at just 13 years old. In Paris, China’s Haohao Zheng took the plunge on Tuesday, five days before her 12th birthday, making her the youngest athlete at the Games.
“I am very happy, but I knew I could have done more. The pain affected me a lot. In the end I went to secure a place and to be happy. It hurt quite a bit, although not as much as at the beginning. My goal was to get to the final and then, if possible, a medal,” explains Naia Laso, the image of innocence, a young woman who before the Games finished fourth year of compulsory secondary school at the Eleizalde Ikastola in Bermeo and after the summer will start her Baccalaureate. “She is so brave!” says the coach, Alain Goikoetxea; “she got injured in the middle of the qualifiers, she saved it and it is an incredible achievement to get to the final like that. The doctors did everything they could and the poor girl arrived unable to walk or climb the stairs. We told her that if she couldn’t, she should stop. It was having a bit of an effect on her but you could see it on her face, she couldn’t. It was another achievement to finally complete a round, out of personal pride, and we left behind everything we wanted to put into the final, our plan.”
That plan has been left halfway, interrupted by injuries. Laso was fifth in the world rankings after winning a world circuit event in Dubai when in May she broke her left collarbone after colliding with a rider in a training session prior to the pre-Olympic Games in Shanghai. Then he went out alone to compete in the competition, to score the minimum points, and the same in the pre-Olympic Games in Budapest in June. That way he saved his ticket to the Games, but time was running out. The Spanish team concentrated in California, where there are more and better facilities (a park like the one they competed in in Paris does not exist in Spain, with that depth and dimensions), and Naia stretched the trip longer than her teammates to recover the lost ground.
This is how the shy girl arrived in Paris, but then in the park she transformed herself, leaving her shame behind and competing, dressed in those Yoda socks that are her trademark as much as the Star Wars soundtrack, which plays in Paris on her first attempt of the day. “My mother bought me the socks and at first I thought they were a bit ridiculous, but then I wore them one day on the street and people thought they were funny. I took them to a competition in Argentina and I did very well. And from then on I have worn them to everyone,” explains the Spaniard. Her family supports her after the competition. She never stops smiling.
Julia Benedetti, the other rider Spanish in parkwas left out of the final with a best result of 70.27 (17th position) and this Wednesday Danny León and Alain Kortabitarte will compete in the men’s category. They will be encouraged by Naia Laso, her shyness and her Yoda, under the Obelisk.
You can follow EL PAÍS Sports on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive the Daily newsletter of the Paris Olympic Games.
