'The Olympics? I’m definitely going for gold': Sitting down with skateboarding world champion Sky Brown

In the angular surroundings of BaySixty6, beneath the busy Westway flyover, Sky Brown has just finished pulling all kinds of skate tricks for ES Magazine’s photographer. Now, dressed down in cargo trousers and a Nike hoodie, she’s ready to chill. But first she needs to pee. The UK’s youngest-ever Olympic medallist is faced with a choice: there are no women’s toilets, only men’s and a disabled cubicle. She opts for the disabled. The most exciting female in British skating is on her home turf, and somehow she’s still out of place.

Feeling out of place, though, is Sky Brown’s homeostasis. Her life is lined with the stretch marks of being first in her field. In headlines, her name is nearly always followed by the phrase ‘youngest ever’, from taking part in the Vans US Open aged eight, to earning a Nike sponsorship aged 11, to qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics aged 13. Her most recent accolade was a gold medal at the 2023 World and training with snowboarder Shaun White. In 2021, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk described Sky as ‘one of the best female skaters ever, if not one of the best wellrounded skaters ever, regardless of gender’.