Chloe Covell braced for wildest ride yet after “crazy” two years
The Australian star’s astronomic ascent up the skateboarding ranks has seen her challenge and befriend the best on the street scene. Now, she’s taking one step closer to her Olympic dream.
Skateboarding
Growth is an essential ingredient in skateboarding. Chloe Covell understands that better than anyone.
She also knows it, literally.
“I’m pretty sure in the last three months or four months I’ve grown two centimetres,” the 14-year-old Australian tells Olympics.com grinning from ear to ear.
“I keep track of my height every month. I try and measure myself for my physio.”
Physical change, part of any teenager’s life, is just one of the hallmarks of Covell’s breathtaking ascent to the summit of street skateboarding.
Another is the speed at which she achieved the climb.
As a 12-year-old, she won her first international medal at X Games Chiba 2022. When she scooped up her second at Summer X Games California three months later, she rewrote history as the youngest skater with two podium finishes in the competition’s history.
On the Olympic qualifying stage for Paris 2024, where she naturally turned to next, the skater from the Tweed Heads quickly went from upstart to world-beater.
Bunched with other skate phenoms also looking to make a mark following Tokyo’s Olympic skateboarding debut, the Australian wonder successfully held her ground clocking in three second-place finishes across the first phase of the qualification period. The most notable result was the silver she claimed at the World Championships in Sharjah where the photo of Covell on the victor’s podium next to Tokyo 2020 Olympic medallists Rayssa Leal and Nishiya Momiji reveals that same, unmistakable grin.
“Yeah it’s been crazy,” Covell admits when asked about her rapid successes. “Getting super good results in the past recent comps that I’ve done has been really good and I’m just keeping on with my training and working hard and progressing my tricks; it’s been really good.”
"She's the best"
If progression is the science of competitive skateboarding then the art of it is a little harder to define.
For the Aussie, the joys and challenges of contest skating come in different forms.
The fun side is obvious. You only need to watch Covell at practice or study her between runs to see how much she relishes her friendships with her peers.
If she isn’t hugging the Australian horde often in her corner urging her on, she’s fist-bumping the Japanese skaters and when she's not doing either of those, she's giving out hugs to Leal, arguably her greatest competition.
On that ‘rivalry’ that some have been quick to draw after seeing the prodigious pair go toe-for-toe, Covell is quick to shut it down. Leal is first, and foremost, a friend and the skate community they are part of, a family.
“She’s the best. I love her so much she’s like the kindest person ever: a really, really good skater,” the Australian says insistently.
“I can’t wait to keep skating with her at all these comps and keep progressing together and skating with each other and being happy.”
Chloe Covell and Rayssa Leal chat in between practice at World Skate's tour stop in Rome, 2022.
Chloe Covell: "It sucks sometimes"
The challenges that Covell admits to facing come with the realities of jet-setting from one contest to the next.
There’s the disappointment when things don’t quite go the way the skater hopes. When asked about how she manages her shortfalls she shows maturity beyond her years.
“It sucks sometimes when you hope to do good but you don’t do that well.
“But I just kinda suck it up and then just move on to the next comp and stop kind of thinking about it so I can put my focus on the comp that’s next.”
As for all the travelling, practicalities are the bane including keeping up with schoolwork like any other regular teen:
“School’s been pretty tough, you know? When I go overseas I find it pretty hard to learn not face-to-face and I just don’t really understand things that well but yeah I guess I’m still doing good in school for now.”
Fortunately for Covell, the support from her school and particularly her schoolmates hasn’t waned an inch, even as she traverses the time zones.
“They’re super supportive of me like every time I come back from a trip they’re like, ‘Congrats you did so good and they try and watch the comps as much as they can and if they can as long as it’s not like in the middle of the night for them then they’ll be able to watch and support me and see how I go.”
Chloe Covell and Oda Yumeka share a hug during the WST Street Rome 2022 final
On the road to Paris 2024
One contest that Covell hopes her friends from Australia will be tuning in to will be the Olympic Qualifier Series (OQS) in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, where her bid to secure a quota* for Paris 2024 will take its next big turn.
Covell will arrive as the world number four thanks to her ability to consistently prove herself a contender. She has made every World Skate final she has entered.
But it won’t be easy. The stakes have been raised.
The young teen will be banking on that consistency at the Huangpu Waterfront where the points on offer will be worth far more than what they were in the first phase of qualification.
Ever since Covell first entered an Olympic qualifier in Rome in 2022, she spoke of a want to compete at the Games in the French capital and that vision has only sharpened as the years have whipped by.
She even shares that one day she hopes to be able to make it a memory she will never forget.
“I do want to get a tattoo when I’m older. I don’t want to fully ink myself out but I do want to get like a couple of small, little tattoos. Definitely, hopefully with the Olympic rings somewhere, like on my arm or my ankle."
*As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.