It's a walk in the park for Japan's shooting star Kusaki Hinano
In just one year since plying her trade abroad, the 15-year-old three-time national champion has shot up to world No. 2 in the Olympic qualifying race and can now smell the baguette.
Skateboarding
There’s rising fast, then there’s Kusaki Hinano.
It’s been only a year since the 15-year-old began competing internationally but Kusaki, just the latest teen wunderkind to come off Japan’s skateboarding conveyor belt, is on the cusp of qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
She is ranked second overall in the women’s park Olympic World Skateboarding Rankings behind only compatriot Hiraki Cocona, the Tokyo 2020 silver medallist.
Kusaki is comfortably ahead of the gold medallist from those Games, Yosozumi Sakura, by more than 50,000 points with three qualifying events remaining on the cards. Barring a catastrophe of some kind, Kusaki is well positioned to make her first Olympic appearance this summer.
And she believes it.
“I’m definitely going to be at Paris,” Kusaki said in an interview with the Sankei Shimbun earlier this year. “I still have three qualifiers left so I plan on getting there first and then reach the podium.”
Fifteen-year-old park skater Kusaki Hinano is in a very good place to qualify for Paris 2024.
Kusaki Hinano, 3-time Japan champion
Kusaki is still a junior high school student nestled in the quiet of Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, but is already an unprecedented, reigning three-time national champion.
She took up the sport when she was eight, following in the footsteps of her mother Yuri who skated for fun. For little Hinano, however, it quickly turned out to be more than just a hobby.
“I didn’t want to lose to my mother,” she recalls of her early days on wheels. “Skateboarding can be scary, you know? At first I didn’t like it but eventually, I got sucked in.”
Kusaki was fourth at both the world championships in Sharjah and the tour event in San Juan last year, and was runner-up to Hiraki at the worlds in Rome.
Amid the racking up of all the Olympic points, Kusaki won her discipline at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China. Not a bad haul for a maiden overseas campaign going up against the best in the world.
Kusaki has no plans to slow down in the Olympic year, starting this week at the World Skateboarding Tour Dubai Park 2024. After that awaits the two-legged Olympic Qualifiers Series in Shanghai and Budapest in May and June, respectively, when everyone’s fate will be sealed.
Kusaki - who looks up to men’s park Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Pedro Barros - says the world has yet to see her best skate, something she can’t wait to deliver on the Games stage.
“I hope to show a new version of me by the Olympics,” she said. “I want everyone to look forward to what I can do.”
*As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
Skateboarding
25 Feb - 3 Mar
Skateboarding | Olympic Qualifier | World Tour Park | Dubai - United Arab Emirates
