PARIS — For a few moments Monday, both Jagger Eaton and Nyjah Huston thought they had the gold medal halfway around their neck. They ended up with silver and bronze, respectively, when Japan’s Yuto Horigome put down a mind-blowing trick on his last attempt to sweep past the field and win the title for a second straight Olympics.
But skateboarding isn’t your normal Olympic sport. Competitors root for each other. They inspire each other. Breaking a boundary is as good as winning a medal. So in that sense, Eaton and Huston will leave Paris with an even bigger reward: The two American stars can say they were part of the greatest final in the history of competitive skateboarding.
“I would say not only were gnarly tricks done, but the energy between the crowd and so many things we were just feeding off it,” said Eaton, who improved on his bronze from Tokyo three years ago. “That crowd, with everybody killing it, it felt like a bunch of friends having an amazing day at skateboarding. Yeah, there was a lot on the line. But it was just so fun I was grateful to be out there.”
But there was also drama and tension. For the 29-year-old Huston, one of the most decorated skateboarders in history with 12 X Games gold medals and six World Championship golds, it was undeniable.
In Tokyo, where skateboard made its Olympic debut, Huston flopped as the big favorite and finished seventh. Now here he was in Paris, executing big, bold tricks and earning scores that put him in first place with three attempts to go.
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He was in a position where his score could only improve – and he had one more big surprise up his sleeve just in case he needed it. On any other day, the score he’d already banked probably would have been good enough to win.
“That feeling of sitting up there, especially being in first place and seeing everyone have a couple more tries, it is a feeling I can’t even describe,” Huston said. “Nerves beyond being able to describe it.”
Then, on the fourth out of five attempts, Huston watched Eaton one-up him with a nollie-270-nose blunt – “it’s never been done in competition, and I’ve barely done it myself,” Eaton said – and raised his arms as he saved a wobbly landing.
When the score came in at a massive 95.25, Eaton had turned the tables. Suddenly he was in front in the cumulative total, 281.04 to 279.38, with Huston having just one attempt to try and replace his lowest counted score.
“I thought I won,” Eaton said.
Neither of them could have expected what came next – though maybe they should have.
Horigome, who had failed to land three straight tricks heading to his final attempt, was not having his best day. He needed something huge just to get onto the podium. Instead, he trumped them both with his own 270 that the judges gave a 97.08. It was one of the highest scores ever in a skateboard competition, and he leapt past both of them into first place.
“Yuta is a savage,” Eaton said. “There’s no other way to put it.”
“Insane,” Huston said. “Insane.”
Both Americans had one more opportunity. Eaton’s problem, though, was that he’d already played his cards. In skateboarding, you can’t repeat a trick you’ve already landed, so the strategy of doing his best trick on the fourth run rather than the fifth and final run left him without much chance to improve.
“I could sit here and be so bummed, but I did the best I wanted to do, the best I could and I gave 100 percent through this whole journey,” he said. “It happens. I’m sitting here with a silver medal. We’ve got two USA on the podium. I’m fine.
“The level of competition was unbelievable. It was arguably the greatest final in skateboarding history.”
Huston did have something still in the bag for his final trick: A “switch heel crooked grind” that he’d executed in some other competitions on smaller obstacles. But this was the Olympics at an unfamiliar venue – a totally different situation than he’d faced.
“Man, it’s a hard one to put down in that moment,” Huston said.
Still, Huston leaves with a medal, a little bit of redemption for his stunningly poor performance in Tokyo and motivation to come back in four years when the Olympics will be in Los Angeles where he makes his home.
“It’s a mixture of feelings because I was close to getting that gold and I’m truly mad at myself for just not putting that last trick down because I know it’s something I can do,” he said. “But skateboarding is all about having fun because it’s the best thing on earth, the funnest thing on earth.”
Follow Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken