Skateboarding’s entry into the Olympics evolved into a tense can-you-top-this exhibition in the men’s street competition, as one world-class skateboarder after another did nuanced variations of tricks off the park’s biggest feature, a 12-stair drop with three different rails.
It was an all-or-nothing venture. Falls got zero points. Stuck landings earned scores to keep. Each trick ended either on the concrete in despair or on the skateboard in some shades of relief and elation.
That is where Yuto Horigome of Japan, the son of a Tokyo taxi driver, came back from a shaky contest start with back-to-back tricks that shot him to a gold medal, just eight miles from where he grew up.