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Team USA’s Nyjah Huston and Jagger Eaton Win Medals

VaselineJuly 29, 2024

2 3 minutes read

Team USA’s Nyjah Huston and Jagger Eaton Win Medals

PARIS — Jagger Eaton and Nyjah Huston thought they had the gold medal halfway around their necks on Monday. They ended up with silver and bronze, respectively, when Japan’s Yuto Horigome pulled off a stunning trick on his final attempt to sweep past the field and win the title for the second time in a row.

But skateboarding is not your average Olympic sport. Competitors cheer for each other. They inspire each other. Pushing the boundaries is as good as winning a medal. In that sense, Eaton and Huston will leave Paris with an even greater reward: the two American stars can say they were part of the greatest final in the history of competitive skateboarding.

“I would say not only were there some great tricks, but the energy between the crowd and so many things that we just capitalized on,” said Eaton, who improved on his bronze from Tokyo three years ago. “That crowd, with everyone doing great, it felt like a bunch of friends having a great day skateboarding. Yeah, there was a lot at stake. But it was just so much fun that I was grateful to be there.”

But there was also drama and tension. For the 29-year-old Huston, one of the most decorated skateboarders in history with 12 X Games gold medals and six World Championship gold medals, it was undeniable.

In Tokyo, where skateboarding made its Olympic debut, Huston flopped as a big favorite, finishing seventh. Now here he was in Paris, pulling off big, daring tricks and scoring scores that put him in first place with three tries remaining.

MORE: At the Olympic Games in Paris, the American women’s team is once again leading the way in the battle for medals

He was in a position where his score could only improve – and he had one big surprise in store just in case he needed it. On another day, the score he had already achieved would probably have been good enough to win.

“That feeling of sitting there, especially being in first place and watching everybody else take a couple more tries, is a feeling I can’t even describe,” Huston said. “Nerves I can’t describe.”

Then, on the fourth of five attempts, Huston watched Eaton outdraw him with a nollie-270-nose blunt — “that’s never been done in a competition, and I’ve hardly done it myself,” Eaton said — and raised his arms as he saved a wobbly landing.

When the score came to a massive 95.25, Eaton had turned the tables. Suddenly he was ahead in the cumulative total, 281.04 to 279.38, with Huston having just one attempt to replace his lowest tallied score.

“I thought I won,” Eaton said.

What happened next was something neither of them could have expected – although perhaps they should have.

Horigome, who had failed to land three consecutive tricks on his final attempt, wasn’t having the best day. He needed something big to get on the podium. Instead, he trumped them both with his own 270, which the judges gave a 97.08. It was one of the highest scores ever in a skateboarding competition, and he leapfrogged them both into first place.

“Yuta is a savage,” Eaton said. “There’s no other way to say it.”

“Crazy,” said Huston. “Crazy.”

Both Americans got one more chance. Eaton’s problem, however, was that he had already played his cards. In skateboarding, you can’t repeat a trick you’ve already landed, so the strategy of doing his best trick on the fourth run instead of the fifth and final run left him little chance to improve.

“I could sit here and be so disappointed, but I did the best I wanted to do, the best I could do and I gave 100 percent throughout this whole journey,” he said. “It happens. I’m sitting here with a silver medal. We’ve got two USAs on the podium. I’m fine.

“The level of competition was incredible. It was probably the best final in the history of skateboarding.”

Huston had something up his sleeve for his final trick: a “switch heel crooked grind” that he had performed in other competitions on smaller obstacles. But this was the Olympics at an unfamiliar location – a very different situation than he had experienced.

“Man, it’s hard to put the book down at that point,” Huston said.

Still, Huston takes home a medal, some compensation for his shockingly poor performance in Tokyo and the motivation to return in four years when the Olympic Games are held in Los Angeles, where he lives.

“It’s a mix of emotions because I was close to getting that gold and I’m really mad at myself for not doing that last trick because I know I can do it,” he said. “But skateboarding is about having fun because it’s the best thing ever, the most fun thing ever.”

Follow Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken

VaselineJuly 29, 2024

2 3 minutes read

Vaseline

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