Who is Momiji Nishiya? At 13, teenager Momiji Nishiya of Japan became one of the youngest individual Olympic champions in history to win the inaugural women's skateboarding gold on July 26.
The Japanese athlete won a gold medal in skateboarding. She's 13 years and 330 days old, making her Japan's youngest ever to win a gold. Nishiya finished ahead of Brazil's Rayssa Leal (13 years and 203 days) and Japan's Funa Nakayama, who is 16-year-old. She scored 15.26 and gave the hosts a clean sweep of the street discipline as skateboarding makes its Olympic debut. Leal won silver and Nakayama clinched the bronze.
Nishiya Momiji, the 13-year-old is now one of the youngest gold medal winners in Olympic history.
Who is Momiji Nishiya?
Nishiya is just months older than the current woman record-holder, American diver Marjorie Gestring, who was 13 years and 267 days old when she won gold at the Berlin Games in 1936. She was just 63 days younger than Nishiya when she won the medal in 1936. The gold medalist's win came just a day after fellow Japanese skater Yuto Horigome won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in skateboarding for the men's competition.
The trailblazing teen, Nishiya, is now one of the youngest Olympians at the Tokyo Games and Japan’s youngest-ever gold medalist. An Osaka native, Nishiya finished atop the 2021 world championship in Rome last month. She brought home a silver. At the Olympics, she wrote her name into the history books with a score of 15.26. Her final three runs (4.15, 4.66 and 3.43) were enough to secure the top spot on the podium. Read more about her here.
The budding skater also competed at the 2019 Summer X Games in the women's street event where she scored 90.00 and won a silver medal. Nishiya also impressed with a score of 14.17 and won the silver medal at the 2021 Street Skateboarding World Championships. Follow the 2020 Tokyo Olympics stories here.
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