Uprising Tokyo: 13-year-old Yoshizawa Coco leads women's qualifiers as new marquee skateboarding contest unfolds
The street skateboarding event gets underway at Ariake Arena as Tokyo 2020 Olympian Aoki Yukito tops men's qualifying. Big guns Horigome Yuto, Jamie Foy and Nakayama Funa earned a bye into Saturday's semi-finals.
Skateboarding
Another Skateboarding contest, more Japanese phenoms rise.
Thirteen-year-old Yoshizawa Coco topped the women’s qualifiers of Uprising Tokyo on Friday (26 May) at Ariake Arena, where the inaugural street skateboarding event got underway.
Yoshizawa’s 74.42 was good enough to give the World championships quarter-finalist the lead over Maeda Hina (70.74) and Sugimoto Niko (70.21), 14, with household names Oda Yumeka (69.80) and Akama Rizu (69.80) following.
Tokyo 2020 Olympians Nakayama Funa and Nishimura Aori have a bye into Saturday’s semi-finals.
Aoki Yukito, also a member of Japan’s Olympic team, topped the men’s qualifying with an 86.69.
Tokyo 2020 champion Horigome Yuto, Jamie Foy, Ishod Wair, Shane O’Neill and Carlos Ribeiro are seeded into the semis.
The top 20 from each gender advanced to the weekend.
The 20th and final female qualifier was none other than 10-year-old Shichi Yusa, the youngest competitor here who is making her first appearance at an international contest.
“I was really nervous because it was my first time at a contest with people from all over the world,” Shichi said.
“Where I skate it’s usually only Japanese people so I was a little excited seeing foreigners.”
Uprising Tokyo: Schedule
All times local (GMT+9)
Saturday, 27 May
- 11:00 - Women's quarter-finals
- 13:30 - Junior competition
- 15:30 - Men's semi-finals
Sunday, 28 May
- 11:00 - Women's final
- 12:30 - Men's final
- 13:45 - Women's best trick
- 14:20 - Men's best trick