Horigo, who received his first gold medal within the males’s avenue skateboarding competitors on the Tokyo Olympics three years in the past with 4 high-scoring methods, is main the best way for Japan’s elite male skate boarders to innovate.
He and his friends stand out by creating distinctive methods that mix a number of kinds. Many of those methods are so troublesome that rivals can not copy them.
For instance, Japanese skater Sora Shirai’s “Taxi Cane” at a latest Olympic qualifier mixed two complicated methods: the “Knight” and the “Cane”. The judges gave it a rating of 97.07, which was the very best rating for talent in such an occasion on the time.
Shirai begins the method with a troublesome transfer – using backwards with the identical foot place as ahead.
He crouched down and ready to fly into the air.
After rotating your shoulders…
…He began spinning counterclockwise.
Then he landed face-back on the railing, the results of muscle reminiscence and years of coaching.
Right here, he performs the “caballerial,” a 360-degree spin invented by American skateboarder Steve Caballero.
Better of all, when he slid down, there have been railings between the wheels and a part of the board hung off the facet, all with out shedding stability.
After finishing his slide, he rotates 180 levels once more, utilizing his arms to information his physique.
He lands easily, a element that can increase his rating. On this manner he accomplished “Sugar Cane”. It is all performed in three seconds.
“There have been one million issues that would go mistaken right here,” however skilled skateboard referee Jason Rothmeyer stated the execution was about pretty much as good as one would count on.
Supply: World Skating Video
It is arduous to place your finger on why Japanese skate boarders have dominated the skilled skateboarding scene for the previous six years or so, or why they’re so good at methods. The Japanese staff received gold medals in males’s and girls’s avenue skateboarding in Tokyo.
“It is just like the well-known definition of porn: it whenever you see it,” Jonathan Russell Clark, creator of a 2022 historical past of the game, stated of Japan’s technical prowess Shi stated.
“You’ll be able to inform they’re doing one thing that different skaters aren’t doing, even if you cannot clarify it and do not know the technical particulars,” he stated.
Japan’s feminine skaters confirmed comparable strengths to their male skaters within the Olympic qualifying rounds: They scored excessive in method however had been much less constant in working. However girls are much less inclined to the rule adjustments as a result of they carry out higher than their rivals in each components of the sport.
However scoring guidelines launched after the Tokyo Olympics might curb that dominance – and their capacity to win medals in avenue skate occasions.
If the lads’s “avenue” competitors on the Tokyo Olympics had been scored below the brand new Paris format, second-place finisher Kelvin Hoeffler of Brazil would win the gold medal.
Horigome may solely accept the bronze medal.
Be aware: If scored utilizing the brand new system, the whole rating shall be decrease as a result of on the Tokyo Olympics, the whole rating is the sum of 4 factors – the very best 4 factors and 5 strikes within the two rounds. However within the new scoring system, the whole rating is barely the sum of three gadgets – the very best run rating and the 2 finest stunt scores.
The road occasion consists of two 45-second runs and 5 separate impediment course methods. The methods are scored primarily based on a skater’s two finest particular person methods, and risk-taking and innovation typically repay.
To carry out properly within the working portion, skaters should constantly carry out numerous strikes—not essentially troublesome ones.
On the Tokyo Olympics, if an athlete performs properly in unbiased expertise however scores comparatively poorly in working, each working scores shall be robotically deleted. That is the case with Horigome.
However in Paris, one of many runs will depend towards the skater’s rating anyway.
World Skating, the worldwide physique that units Olympic skateboarding guidelines, modified the format for the Paris Video games after convening a committee to investigate the Tokyo outcomes. Luca Basilico, director of skateboarding at World Skate, stated there was a basic feeling that the format didn’t absolutely mirror the total breadth and variety of the game.
Ian Michna, writer of skate journal Jenkem, stated he welcomed the brand new format.
“Working can present a skater’s stability, skating model and provide you with a broader sense of their skills,” he stated.
However that would pose a problem for Japan, as a overview of outcomes information by The New York Occasions exhibits that Japan’s efficiency in latest Olympic qualifying tournaments has not been significantly constant.
The Occasions evaluation discovered that even when Japanese skaters achieved their finest particular person strikes, their working efficiency nonetheless lagged behind that of their high rivals, significantly skaters from Brazil and the US.
supply: world skating
Be aware: Proven are the very best working and talent scores of athletes competing within the Paris Olympics. Solely scores from the Paris Olympic qualifying finals are included.
American and Brazilian male avenue skaters are typically stronger at working than their Japanese counterparts as a result of they carry out extra methods fluidly and constantly whereas crossing obstacles.
In distinction, Japanese skaters typically begin and finish their working sequences with extremely technical methods that impress followers but additionally threat hurting their total outcomes.
This was an instance from the post-Olympic video games held in Rome two years in the past.
Horizo solely managed seven strikes throughout his run, and failed to finish his hardest transfer.
However Nija Houston, an award winning american skater, accomplished greater than 10 stunts throughout varied obstacles. Among the methods are comparatively easy, however the total rating is excessive.
The change in format might not have an effect on Japan’s efficiency in Paris.
World skating consultant Basilico stated the change was “about representing skateboarding the best way we predict it ought to be represented” relatively than concentrating on particular athletes.
Liz Akama, a member of the Japanese girls’s staff, stated she was not frightened in regards to the rating change.
Akama stated high-scoring, unbiased stunts usually are not her sturdy swimsuit. The change in format allowed her to focus extra on perfecting the abilities she already had, together with these she may use in working.
“Regardless that the principles have modified, everyone seems to be adapting,” she stated.
Living proof: Horigome received final month’s Olympic qualifiers in Budapest partially by displaying off a various nine-movement just like what Houston did in Rome in 2022.
Shirai and Japanese teammate Ginyu Onodera completed second and third.
Japanese skate boarders dominate the rostrum through the closing Olympic qualifying occasion in Budapest. From left to proper: Onodera Ginu, Horigo Yuuto, and Shirai Sora.
Attila Kisbenedek/AFP — Getty Pictures
A number of specialists in interviews predicted that the Japanese staff will do properly in Paris, because the nation’s finest avenue skaters show their versatility in a single competitors after one other.
Horigome additionally received this 12 months’s Tampa Professional, a avenue occasion the place scoring relies completely on working.
“I feel they will do extremely properly once more and so they all the time will,” stated Kevin Harris, a Canadian former professional with deep ties to Japan’s skateboarding scene. “They’re producing the very best skate boarders on the planet.”
