One Unbelievable Ride Sent Skateboarder Zion Wright To The Olympics

Zion Wright competes during the Men's Park Final at the Dew Tour on May 23, 2021 in Des Moines, Iowa.

One of the reasons people love sports is because anything can happen. 
Records can fall.
The underdogs can beat the odds. 
Athletes can go from unknowns to household names overnight. That possibility is especially present at the Olympics, where athletes can catapult from being stars of their sports to stars, period.
Skateboarder Zion Wright may soon experience that firsthand. The 22-year-old from Jupiter, Florida, will be one of just 20 men competing in park skateboarding when the sport makes its Olympic debut in Tokyo later on this month. The men’s park event will be held Aug. 5.
Wright’s been well-known in the skateboarding world since he was a teenager and has long been considered an up-and-comer with his impressive mix of speed and style.
Having started skateboarding at the age of 4, Wright moved to California at 16 to pursue the sport in its epicenter and turned pro at 18.
By that point he’d already attracted plenty of interest from sponsors and fans alike. One of the first videos that pops up when searching his name is a 2017 compilation of his greatest hits by longtime skateboarding magazine Thrasher. In it, he slides down stair rails, launches off steps into the air and turns any obstacle or slope he can find in the urban world into a launchpad for a trick. 
Over the years, he started to fare better in park skateboarding than street — the other skateboarding discipline that will be contested in Tokyo.
Taking his skills from the handrails, benches and walls of street skateboarding to the hallowed-out park course, Wright won the 2018 Vans Park Series event in Huntington Beach, California. That same year he was on a season four episode of the HBO series “Ballers,” along with fellow Olympian Nyjah Huston and skateboarding godfather Tony Hawk, as the show’s lead characters decide to enter the action sports market. 
Then, in February of this year, Ellen DeGeneres spotlighted Wright as someone who’s making Black history. Wright posted the clip to his Instagram, captioning it:

But when he entered the Dew Tour competition in Des Moines, Iowa, back in May, the Olympics weren’t necessarily what one would call a strong possibility for Wright. 
It was the last qualifying competition for Tokyo. Two of the three men’s park spots were already taken. Wright was ranked 114th in the world and 16th among U.S. men. 
But again, in sports, anything can happen. 
And on Wright’s last run of the day, what happened was pretty spectacular.
The names of the tricks he landed — backside 540, fakie grab, alley-oop, heelflip indy — won’t mean much to anyone not familiar with board sports. Suffice it to say it was impressive.
He dropped in and went straight back up, spinning up and over an obstacle in the center of the course and from there it was on. Back and forth he carved, launching off lips into the air and grinding on edges as the announcers’ excitement increased with every trick he landed.  
After it was over, a smiling Wright was enveloped by his fellow skaters with hugs and whoops. 
“We’ve just witnessed something iconic,” one commentator said. “What Zion just did there was out of this world.”
He needed to win the contest to make the Olympic team, and that’s exactly what he did. 
Afterward, he posted to his Instagram:

Wright’s Olympian status was made official when USA Skateboarding announced the 2020 team at the end of June. As the first-ever U.S. Olympic skateboarders were introduced to the world, they were asked what they love about skateboarding.
“The reason why I love skateboarding so much is because I feel like it gives me so much hope, so much joy,” Wright said. “It gives me an opportunity to express who I am and what I stand for. Thank you, skateboarding.”