ENCINITAS — One of the new events that can be seen at this year’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo is the sport of skateboarding. And Encinitas has sent two young skaters to represent Team USA.
Bryce Wettstein, 16, and Brighton Zeuner, 17, are both Encinitas residents who have both made their trip to Japan this week to compete in the Women’s Park event on August 4.
In 2017, Zuener made history as the youngest person ever to win a gold medal at the X-Games in Minneapolis.
Earlier this month, Wettstein took home a bronze medal during an X-Games event in Vista as a lead-in to the Olympics.
The park competition is the second skateboarding event to take place at this year’s summer games with the men’s and women’s street events finishing earlier this week.
Japan took home the gold medals in both events with Nishiya Momiji winning the women’s gold and Horigome Yuto earning the men’s gold.
According to the Olympics website, the park competitions “take place on a hollowed-out course featuring a series of complicated curves — some resembling large dishes and dome-shaped bowls.”
The course was designed by California Games, the company responsible for designing and building Prince Park in Oceanside and San Diego’s Linda Vista Skatepark.
There are two rounds to the competition, prelims and the finals.
During the preliminary round, 20 male skaters and 20 female skaters will compete in four heats of five skaters each.
Each skater will have three runs of 45 seconds each to be scored by five judges. The top eight scoring skaters will advance to the final round where they will again be given three runs of 45 seconds scored by five judges.
The first heat of the women’s park prelims will begin on August 4 at 9 a.m. local time (5 p.m. on August 3 Pacific Time) at Ariake Park in Tokyo.
