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Home , Leticia Bufoni, Sky Brown, The Skatepark Project, X Games

X Games 2021 Research Update for July 12, 2021

Hey all! This is the final Update to feature athlete profiles. On Tuesday night, we’ll circulate the 2021 Fact Collector as well as a preview of Wednesday’s BMX contests in Pat Casey’s backyard.

Note: The X Games 2021 page on xdaily..co is up and running. In addition to these Updates, you’ll find: Minneapolis 2019 recaps, recent contest results, rules-at-a-glance, etc. More content is added frequently, including on-site practice and comp recaps. If you don’t currently have access, simply apply at xdaily.espn.co. Email [email protected] with any questions. Thanks!

Look Out Below! • This Update profiles , Dashawn Jordan and X Games BMX Dirt champ Colton Walker. Sky, age 13, is on the cusp of global superstardom, while Jordan aims for his first X Games gold. The 24-year-old Walker opens up about bouts of depression and anxiety and why he’s now in a better place.

Say What? (All quotes provided directly to X Games researchers unless otherwise noted.)

13-year-old Sky Brown, on competing at both X Games and the Olympics: “The Great Britain team wasn’t so sure about [skating at X Games], and even my parents weren’t so sure about it. They said, ‘What if you get hurt?’ But I thought, I’m going to be skating anyway, right? What’s the difference? X Games is fun! It’s a good group of girls in the contest and it’s just as important to me as the Olympics. I didn’t want to miss it!”

SKATEBOARD

A New Teen Queen of Skate Sky Brown may have become a teenager just last week, but her philosophy and mature attitude toward competition sound advanced for her 13 years.

“Winning medals isn’t what’s important to me,” she says. “Living my life is what’s important to me. Getting to be a kid, , , having fun, hanging out with my friends and my brother and my mom and dad.”

Having fun is actually the main reason she’s coming to XG 2021 before heading to Tokyo, where she’ll be the youngest Olympic athlete ever to represent Great Britain and is coming in as the #3 ranked park skater in the world.

“The Great Britain team wasn’t so sure about [skating at X Games], and even my parents weren’t so sure about it,” Sky says. “They said, ‘What if you get hurt?’ But I thought, ‘I’m going to be skating anyway, right? What’s the difference?’ X Games is fun! It’s a good group of girls in the contest and it’s just as important to me as the Olympics. I didn’t want to miss it!”

Sky finished 5th as an 11-year-old rookie at XG Minneapolis 2019, where she became the first woman ever to land a frontside 540 in competition, soared a 360 over the center island feature and landed a to fakie on the large bank wall. She was 4’6 at the time and weighed just 66 pounds. She’s still small (5’0, 95 pounds), but she’s picked up a lot of power and speed and some big new tricks (including a McTwist) in the two years since.

If she takes X Games gold, she’ll miss Brighton Zeuner’s mark as youngest X Games gold medalist (13 yrs., 1 day at XG Minneapolis 2017) by one week. But she could become the second-youngest gold medalist in X Games history, and she’d keep a great stat going: skaters younger than 21 have won every Women’s Park comp at X Games. In fact, teenagers have won 5 of the 6 contests. Of the 9 skaters in the field at XG 2021, 7 are under the age of 21, and 6 of them are teenagers.

Women’s SKB Park Gold Medalists Gold Medalist Age 2019 Minneapolis Misugu Okamoto 13 2018 Minneapolis Brighton Zeuner 14 2017 Minneapolis Brighton Zeuner 13 2016 Austin Kisa Nakamura 16 2013 Lizzie Armanto 20 2003 Vanessa Torres 17

“I’m going to be excited if I win and I’m going to be excited if anybody else wins because they’re all my friends,” Sky says, artfully dodging gold medal pressure at every chance. “I’m just excited to be going back to X Games!”

• DOB: July 7, 2008. Age: 13. She’s the youngest in the XG 2021 Women’s SKB Park field at 13 yrs., 1 week. The child of a Japanese mother and British father, the family has lived primarily in Huntington Beach, CA, since 2019. • 2021 is her second XG appearance. 5th in Women’s SKB Park at Minneapolis 2019. • First woman to land frontside 540 in competition, at XG Minneapolis 2019. Hers, first learned as a flyout trick from the bowl to the deck at her home , is slightly inverted, so it’s technically a rodeo flip. She has since learned frontside 720 flyouts to the deck and aims to try 720s in the bowl and on vert in the future. • Wants to do both frontside and backside 540s in her upcoming competition runs and may try both at XG 2021 if she’s feeling good. Several of her competitors -- including XG 2019 gold medalist Misugu Okamoto, her friend Sakura Yosozumi and XG 2021 rookie Jordan Santana -- have backside 540s.

• Skate legends Christian Hosoi and helped her learn proper McTwists (inverted backside 540s) in 2020. She first did them in the bowl at the Vans Skatepark and then on Tony’s private vert ramp. Tony also helped talk her through her first time jumping the gap at Elliot Sloan’s backyard ramp. • She’s #3 in the 2019-2021 World Skate rankings. Results highlights: 2nd at Des Moines (May 2021); 3rd at Oi Stu Open Rio de Janeiro (Nov. 2019); 3rd at World Skate Park World Championships São Paulo (Sept. 2019). • Great in interviews, and mainstream media has noticed: ESPN, NBC, CNN, , BBC and more have covered her recently. “We’ve definitely had to put some walls up,” her dad, Stu Brown, told X Games Research. “Her main priority this summer is surfing, funny enough. So if I know the waves are going to be shit tomorrow, I’ll reach out to reporters who have been hitting us up and try to give them a little window with her. As soon as it gets to be too much, we pull away.”

• Discovery+ has a new documentary, Reaching The Sky, on its subscription channel, though it’s not yet available in North America without jumping through some VPN geolocation hoops. So here’s a trailer. It includes footage from her terrible June 2020 crash at Tony Hawk’s vert ramp. She missed the gap transfer and fell from about 15 feet to flat. She was knocked unconscious, fractured her skull, broke her left arm and several fingers on her right hand and had other internal injuries including lacerations to her lungs. Incredibly, she skated just weeks later. • She’s now officially a Red Bull athlete (the brand only sponsors athletes age 13+), and she’s in the process of launching a new skateboard company, Monarch Project, in a 50-50 business partnership with . Both skaters have shared images and videos of their new boards on social media. • “Leticia and I have had a close relationship for a long time, since I was 5 or 6, and she’s like a big sister. We’ll both be riding our new signature boards at X Games and the Olympics, and we’re about to announce a sick team. People are going to be shocked by some of the people on the team. Me and Leticia are the founders, but it’s not going to be a girls’ brand or a girls’ team: It’s going to be for everybody. We were inspired by a lot of our favorite pro skaters who started skateboard companies and put together their dream teams. We want to build something cool together.” • Instagram: @skybrown, 821,000 followers. Sky and her younger brother Ocean are also very active on YouTube: Sky & Ocean, 276,000 subscribers.

Quest for Gold: Dashawn Jordan Nothing motivates quite like a silver medal. Two years ago, Dashawn Jordan felt like he had gold snatched right from his hands at XG 2019. He led until the final run of the Men’s Skateboard Street Final. And then did as Nyjah Huston does, winning with the last pass of the contest for a walk-off gold.

“It put that fire inside me, knowing I put together a run that the judges were stoked on, even after that buzzer-beater went the way it did,” Jordan says, reflecting on getting bumped to silver. “I’d skated X Games a few times before Shanghai, growing mentally and physically every year, so it felt good to see that progression rewarded out there on the course. For me, the silver medal is like fuel on the fire. It’s telling me, ‘You’re so close. Now go get it.’”

Dashawn says the Shanghai event was also a reminder that it’s never only about medals. He’s been prioritizing mental health over the last two years, both for himself and as an advocate for mental health awareness. He says he’s been working on keeping everything in perspective.

“X Games Shanghai was mad dope,” he says. “All the homies were there, and all the experiences in and outside of the contest were good: street skating in , being there with my girlfriend, eating good food. This last year, when all of that kind of travel was shut down, it put some perspective on it all for sure. I wasn’t even prepared for how much I was going to miss it or how hard it was going to hit everyone I know. It’s honestly changed how I think about it all. It made me feel even more blessed than ever to have what I do have and to be on this adventure.”

Jordan is scheduled to compete in two disciplines at XG 2021. In Skateboard Street, he wants to try the laser flip (frontside 360 shove-it ) that impressed judges so much in Shanghai. In SKB Best Trick, he has the next level on his mind. Unlike most of his competitors who keep their plans close to the vest, Dashawn doesn’t mind calling his shot: “I’m coming for a laser flip back lip in Best Trick,” he says. “I’m stoked. Let’s get it!”

• DOB: February 5, 1997. Age: 24. • SKB Street silver medalist at XG Shanghai 2019 • XG 2021 will be his 7th Street start and 2nd in Street Best Trick. He also competed in Real Street 2019. His last X Games appearance was Minneapolis 2019. He finished 7th and 9th in Street Best Trick and Street. • 1st at 2021 USA Skateboarding Nationals (April 2021, at The Berrics). • 1st at Street League Unsanctioned #1 (Dec. 2020, at Nyjah Huston’s private park). • His rookie appearance at XG Minneapolis 2017 followed a wave of hype after his 2016 Tampa Am win.

• Dashawn was raised in Tucson, Arizona, by a single mom, Tora Simpkins. We’ve previously noted that his dad was never in the picture. But in 2020 he received a message from a stranger, saying her daughter wanted to meet Dashawn and other step-siblings with the same father. The message led to him meeting up with his stepsister and two stepbrothers for the first time, and it also helped him reconnect with both his father and paternal grandfather for the first time in his memory. Says he doesn't hold a grudge against his father for not being there when he was younger and is happy to know some more of his family now. • He’s lived in North Hollywood for several years but still spends a lot of time with family in Arizona, especially since his longtime girlfriend Kylie Miniefield lives there. After graduating with a master’s degree in Sports Law & Business from Arizona State University, where she was a midfielder for the Sun Devils soccer team, Kylie now works in community relations for the Arizona Cardinals NFL team.

• Dashawn, a lifelong hip-hop lover who has dabbled in music-making for several years, released his first single -- “White Claw” -- in May 2020. • Officially turned pro in February 2020 with his first pro model board for Business & Company, a brand run by one of his childhood heroes, Marc Johnson. But he’s already made a move: in April 2020 he signed with Toy Machine, led by another childhood hero, skate (and art) legend Ed Templeton, just in time to get a part in the new team video, Vaccine. • Mike Sinclair, the Toy Machine team manager, is also a sport organizer for Skateboard at X Games, and Dashawn says he’s been a mentor and supporter for many years: “It all lined up just right. I’ve known Mike forever and he’s advocated for me at all the right moments, just that dude who is always looking out for me. And it’s been dope working with Ed and being part of his creative space when it comes to working on graphics and stuff. I’m already filming for another new part, and we’ve got a lot of cool stuff in the works.” • Instagram: @dashawnjordan, 271,000 followers.

BMX

Colton Walker: The Forgotten Man Rookies rarely win at X Games. But Colton Walker wasn’t an average rookie. At Minneapolis 2017, the then 20-year-old rode with a composure beyond his years on his way to a surprising gold medal in BMX Dirt.

That was the beginning of an impressive run of X Games results that featured eight consecutive top 5 places, including Dirt bronze at XG 2018. The quiet, introverted Walker wasn’t that active on social media and still lived in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where he grew up far outside the typical BMX hotspots. But he’d show up at X Games and perform well.

His streak of strong finishes ended at X Games Minneapolis 2019, when he missed the cut to the BMX Dirt Final and ended 11th. It wasn’t just his riding that suffered. His life was in a deep funk.

Walker lived with a girlfriend with whom he had a toxic, unhealthy relationship. He says he didn’t have much experience in relationships and kept trying to make it work, but he just felt worse. Then there was additional pressure to qualify for Team USA for the Tokyo Olympics. It wore him down even more.

“Once the Olympics came into play, I put so much stress on myself,” Colton says. “It took my focus away from the fun of BMX. It added an element to BMX that none of us were used to.”

Walker stepped away. He pulled back from the competition scene and avoided his social media outlets for months at a time. His Instagram account features just 6 posts for all of 2020, and his posts from the second half of the year have comments from fans and fellow competitors expressing how much they missed him.

While not clinically diagnosed with depression or anxiety, Walker says he suffered from bouts of both. So he made some major life changes. He ended the relationship at the beginning of 2021. This May, he moved away from his childhood hometown of New Richmond to the more nature-filled St. Croix Falls, WI, 45 minutes away. It helped. He said he found a different place, mentally.

“I think I had a lot of negative in my life that’s gone now,” Walker says. “I felt stuck living in New Richmond where I grew up. I was in a rut. It was too easy to do nothing.”

He now lives with his cousin, someone he feels close to and who supports him. He also has better access to some of the other things he loves, like fishing. But is he ready for X Games? He’s only competed at one contest since XG Minneapolis 2019.

“Mentally, I feel really good,” Walker says. “I feel very confident. BMX is going well, and I’m super excited about traveling and X Games.”

Statistically speaking, Colton should be the favorite in BMX Dirt. In the 20 editions of the discipline at X Games, no one older than 25 has struck gold. Walker -- who was the youngest on the XG Dirt roster in his four previous starts and who’s still just 24 -- is one of just two on the 2021 roster who fit the age profile. Of course, Colton’s two Dirt medals should mark him as a favorite, too.

Is a fresh perspective all he needs for a return to the podium?

• DOB: April 8, 1997. Age 24 • 2 X Games medals, both in BMX Dirt: Minneapolis 2017 gold; Sydney 2018 bronze. • Has competed only once since Minneapolis 2019: 4th at the Toyota Triple Challenge in Arlington, TX, in Jan. 2021. • He was the local boy done good at Minneapolis 2017 when he became the first X Games rookie to win BMX Dirt since Stephen Murray in 2001. Walker was born in Minneapolis but lived in nearby New Richmond, WI, at the time. • Youngest on the roster the first 4 times he competed in X Games BMX Dirt (2017- 2019). He’s the second-youngest Dirt champ (20). 1996 winner Joey Garcia was 18 yrs., 2 mos. • Walker is one of two former XG Dirt champs on the X Games 2021 roster (Kevin Peraza, Austin 2016). • Says social media stresses him out. He occasionally goes dark on Instagram. As a result of his spotty engagement, he only has 30,600 followers (Kevin Peraza has 250,000). “I wanted to focus on the moment and being there. I didn’t want to take myself away from the moment to post something. I’ve been enjoying it more now, though, and am having fun posting little videos.” • Instagram: @coltonwalker1 (30,600 followers)