Image Credit: Team USA
(North County Beat) – Encinitas skateboarder Jagger Eaton thrilled fans with a silver medal performance in the men’s street skateboarding event at the Paris Olympics on July 29. Despite a strong showing, Eaton was narrowly edged out by Japan’s Yuto Horigome, who defended his Olympic title with an incredible final trick.
The competition took place at the iconic Place de la Concorde in Paris, where Eaton, 23, who previously won bronze in Tokyo, became the first San Diego County Olympian to medal in the 2024 games. His impressive nollie-270-nose blunt on the second-to-last attempt had him in the lead and on track for gold.
“I thought I’d won,” Eaton remarked. However, Horigome, who had stumbled on his previous three tricks, pulled off a brilliant backside nollie 270 to nose bluntside on a 10-stair rail, earning a score of 97.08 and securing the gold.
Eaton, with one final attempt left, couldn’t replicate his earlier success and finished with a score of 281.04, just a hair’s breadth away from gold.
“Yuta is a savage. There’s no other way to put it. 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. 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.”
American teammate and 12-time X Games champion Nyjah Huston secured the bronze with a score of 279.38, his first Olympic medal following a seventh-place finish in Tokyo.
Eaton’s back-to-back Olympic medals solidify his status among the skateboarding elite. Reflecting on the intense competition, Eaton expressed his appreciation for the experience.
“Not only were gnarly tricks done, but the energy between the crowd and so many things we were just feeding off it,” said Eaton. “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.”
Other North County San Diego athletes representing the U.S. skateboarding team in Paris include Encinitas skaters Bryce Wettstein and Tom Schaar, as well as Oceanside’s Gavin Bottger and Ruby Lilley.
