SKY BROWN battled through the pain barrier to win another Olympic bronze medal.
Team GB’s youngest Olympian dislocated her shoulder just nine days before the women’s park skateboarding event at La Concorde.
Then on her third run of preliminaries – with a spot in the final virtually guaranteed already – she took a nasty fall and hurt her left shoulder.
World champion Brown, 16, was on the verge of tears when speaking to the press with her arm tucked inside her vest jacket after the qualifying round but vowed to battle through to line up on the top of the bowl for the final.
As she has done throughout her career.
Brown fractured her skull the year before becoming Team GB’s youngest medallist with a bronze in this event in Tokyo in 2021 then suffered knee ligament damage in April before qualifying for this Games.
So she refused to let another shoulder problem earlier today that required her to be helped out of the bowl rule her out of the final, for which her opening 84.75 score secured her qualification in fourth spot.
That saw her drop in fifth of the eight finalists – although Tokyo champion Sakura Yosozumi was dumped out and failed to make it through, as did 11-YEAR-OLD Zheng Haohao from China, born during London 2012.
In the three-run final, Brown started off in style with a thrilling action-packed 45 seconds, wowing the crowd with her box of tricks including a speedy backside tail slide.
She did fall but that came after the hooter and therefore went unpunished – and her 80.57 score placed her in provisional second.
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By the time of her second run – with the best score of the three efforts counting for each skater – the world No4 was down in fifth.
However, she put on another stunning show with some backside air and a whole heap of inversions and, crucially, kept it clean.
Then came the nervous wait for the judges’ scores and the fans erupted when her 91.60 score flashed up on the screen to jump into the silver medal position.
But after Arisa Drew produced a perfect 45 seconds for a breathtaking 93.18 to leapfrog Brown and Cocona Hiraki into gold as the Brit was knocked down into third.
Sky’s response?
Another faultless display – a similar combination of tricks and flicks. But was it going to be good enough to get a medal?
Brown soaked up the moment by leaning on her board at the top of the bowl while waiting for the judges’ scores to come through… 92.31 – back into second with three skaters to go.
And when Bryce Wettstein fell, a medal was guaranteed for Brown before Hiraki pipped her into silver with a 92.63 on the very last run of the final as 14-year-old Aussie Drew held on to claim gold.
Fellow Team GB teen Lola Tambling, nailed her first run with a score of 73.85 but fell on her second and third – and that was not enough to make it through as she finished 15th on her Olympics debut.
Tambling, 16, said: “I’m buzzing right now. I can’t believe it. It’s crazy. I skated, managed to land my run. I’m so buzzing, I have no words, but I’m just soaking it all in.
“It was so sick to have Sky as a team-mate, she did so well. She’s so sick.
“Hearing that I am an Olympian is crazy. It makes me want to cry happy tears when I think about it.”
