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Louise Thomas

Editor

Sky Brown vowed to push through the pain barrier after sustaining a new injury during qualifying for the women’s park skateboarding final later at the Olympics on Tuesday at La Concorde.

The 16-year-old laid down a score of 84.75 on her first run which proved enough to put her through to the Paris 2024 final in fourth place, but raised concerns after falling heavily in the last of her three runs.

Brown was helped from the bowl with an apparent shoulder injury and concerns were raised given she dislocated her left shoulder in training last month, which at one point put her second Olympic appearance in doubt.

Carefully nursing her injury and appearing close to tears, Brown said: “It was scary falling and feeling it. Definitely it’s a little sore but I’m going to push through.

“I’m just going to fight through it for all the girls. It’s why I started competing and it’s why I wanted to be at the Olympics, to fight for them and show them they can do it too.”

Brown has had a rocky past few months with injuries after sustaining an MCL tear in her knee, while she narrowly failed to qualify for surfing ahead of these Games.

“Every injury I’ve had, I’ve come back stronger,” Brown told NBC after the knee injury. “So this is just my time to really think about what I want to do next. It really puts a fire in my heart - it happens, it is part of life.”

That was followed by the dislocated shoulder just before the Games began, on which she will have an operation when she returns home after the Olympics. For now, she will push through the pain in Paris.

Tokyo silver medallist Cocona Hiraki topped the qualifying standings with a score of 88.07, but defending champion Sakura Yosozumi missed out on the final by two places.

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