Three years ago, Yuto Horigome stood on the podium in the men’s street skateboarding competition at the Tokyo Olympics, where the sport was welcomed into the Olympics.

Just a few weeks later, Horigome would tell the national team coach, “I will not participate in the Olympic Games in Paris.”

He has had a long and turbulent five years since it was decided in 2016 that skateboarding would become an Olympic sport.

Since then, Horigome had been Japan’s best skater and had high expectations amid the constant pressure. He felt burned out.

“My dream had come true and I didn’t know what to do,” recalls Horigome, now 25.

Horigome, based in Los Angeles, the birthplace of skateboarding, had a new goal in mind.

He felt that the Japanese had not yet fully understood and embraced the essence of skateboarding.

“I want to spread skateboarding culture and improve the competitive environment in Japan,” he said.

Skateboarding originally spread as part of street culture and many skaters filmed their tricks using stairs and benches, creating a collection of ‘video parts’.

Horigome took inspiration from the videos of many skaters from the 1990s, improved his techniques and developed his own style, he says.

After the Tokyo Games, Horigome began to focus on producing its own video segments to develop and popularize skateboarding and leave a legacy for future generations.

In 2023, he was involved in the organization of a competition in Tokyo, in which the best international skaters participated.

Until then, Japanese skateboarders mainly traveled to competitions abroad and it was rare for the world’s elite to gather in Japan.

It was the pure desire that “I want more people to know the appeal of skateboarding” that motivated him, Horigome recalls.

At first he was unsure whether to register for the Olympic Games in Paris.

But to spread the word about skateboarding even further, he started thinking about the significance of winning two Olympic gold medals in a row.

But the qualifying round was “really hellish,” Horigome said.

A revision to the scoring rules increased the points value for runs, in which competitors perform a series of tricks within 45 seconds.

That forced Horigome, who excelled at difficult tricks on his own, to rethink his strategy.

“No matter what I did, nothing went right,” he said.

In May, towards the end of the Olympic qualifying rounds, he was even eliminated in a preliminary round.

Still, he continued to search for gold, whenever there was even a slight chance of success.

The final round of qualifying rounds took place in June.

In the final run he scored a high score, managed to perform a new trick and, thanks to a deficit, earned the right to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris.

“Finally a glimmer of hope,” Horigome said with relief.

The drama continued at the men’s skateboarding street finals at the Paris Olympics on July 29.

Horigome failed his best trick in the final on the second through fourth runs. But he succeeded in his fifth and final run.

He quickly climbed from outside the medal standings to the top of the podium.

“It’s been three long, hellish years to get here,” Horigome said after his triumph, which made him a two-time Olympic champion. “I think this is more important than the gold medal from the Tokyo Olympics.”