Paris, 7 August 2024, (TDI): Zheng Haohao; China’s youngest Olympian is an 11-year-old who was born on the penultimate day of the London 2012 Olympics.
At the women’s skateboarding park in Paris, Zheng competed against Sky Brown, a teenage member of Team GB.
Zheng didn’t make it to the final, where Australia’s Arisa Trew took first place with a top score of 63.19, finishing 18th in the preliminary round.
She just started skateboarding when she was seven years old, making her one of the youngest Olympians in history when she departs France.
Her birthday is this Sunday, so she has even more cause to celebrate this week.
The children are all right
So far in both of its Games, the Olympic skateboarding field has been predominantly composed of young athletes.
The three teenagers that won medals in Paris were Brown (16) and Kokona Hiraki (15) of Japan, who both repeated their podium places from the previous Games.
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At 23, Dora Varella of Brazil was the event’s seasoned competitor, but 51-year-old Andy Macdonald is scheduled to participate for Team GB in the men’s division, proving that skateboarding is not just for the young.
Macdonald had already won eight gold medals at the X Games before Zheng’s birth.
However, at the age of 65, Spanish competitor Juan Antonio Jimenez is the oldest athlete competing at the Paris Games—Macdonald has nothing on him.
Dimitrios Loundras, who won team bronze in gymnastics in 1896 at the age of ten, and is still the youngest confirmed Olympic competitor, will be remembered with Zheng Haohao throughout history.
Although his name is unknown, a kid who coxed a Dutch boat in Paris in 1900, estimated to be seven or eight years old, may have broken his record.
At the age of thirteen in 1936, Marjorie Gesting from the United States became the youngest female gold medalist in the history of the Summer Olympics when she won the gold in 3m springboard diving.
Even though Zheng Haohao may not have outperformed her, a gold in Los Angeles in four years would make a fantastic sixteenth birthday gift.
