Nyjah Huston of Team United States trains during a Skateboarding Training Session at La Concorde GETTY IMAGES

Nyjah Huston, the American skater, failed to live up to expectations in Tokyo 2020. Paris is his second chance for glory. He knows he has a lot of competition, but he is approaching the challenge in a different way. She intends to have fun doing what he does best.

When you do something for the first time, it doesn't always go well. She went into Tokyo 2020 as skateboarding's biggest star. Everyone was tipping him as the favourite to be the sport's first Olympic champion.

Things didn't work out. What Huston got was seventh place. In the Olympics, that's a success for many athletes. For Huston it was not. She felt the pressure of having to be the best and what he got was disappointment.

Paris 2024 is the second time skateboarding has been an Olympic sport. Huston has a lot of eyes on him again. But he says he has learned from the experience. Now he's trying to feel less of that pressure. In Tokyo "it was hard to handle," she says.



Huston comes into the Games with a good feeling, and won in two X Games competitions last month. She feels good about training, and is looking forward to Saturday to show what she can do.

Huston knows he is going to have a tough time. Above all, because of the competition she has the three Japanese representatives. One is Olympic champion, Yuto Horigome, another is world champion, Sora Shirai, and a 14-year-old, who is the new sensation of world skateboarding, Ginwoo Onodera.

It's not just Tokyo that he's swapping Tokyo for Paris. In Japan, because of pandemic restrictions, there was no audience. In Paris it will be different. The energy of the public is easily transmitted to the athletes. The men's competition takes place on Saturday. At 12:00 CEST, the heats, and at 17:00 CEST, the final. The women's competition will take place on Sunday.