X Games Chiba 2024: Age is just a number for 10-year-old Kawakami Ema

Talented young Japanese are nothing new to skateboarding. Man or woman, it’s as if they come off an assembly line, one after another.

But Kawakami Ema takes the cake. The vert specialist from Kobe turned 10 just 11 days ago. That’s right, T-E-N.

And he’s already drawing comparisons to the one-and-only, the godfather of the sport - Tony Hawk.

In June, Kawakami received an invite to Tony Hawk’s Vert Alert in Salt Lake City as a wild card after his Instagram posts had gone viral.

There, under the gaze of the legend himself, the half-pint-sized chosen one became the first skater in history to nail three consecutive 900s, a two-and-a-half revolution aerial spin.

That earned him a ticket to his first X Games at Ventura, making him the youngest-ever male participant when he was still at the age of nine. He finished fifth. Even Nyjah Huston, who is on the cusp of becoming the most successful X Games athlete all-time, made his debut on the stage when he was 11. Earlier this month, Kawakami also competed at the World Skate Games Italia 2024 (he fell short of reaching the final).

This weekend, on Saturday, Kawakami will appear at X Games Chiba, an event he had been to as a fan the last two years.

Get ready to witness something potentially legendary from a boy who would be 13 for the next Olympics at Los Angeles 2028. Look out LA!