Aori Nishimura
Board force
By Charlie Campbell
JAPAN
You don’t become one of the
world’s top skateboarders without taking
a few tumbles. But Aori Nishimura knew
this fall was different. She was skate-
boarding in Los Angeles in 2017 when
she landed a trick badly, tearing the an-
terior cruciate ligament in her left knee.
Just three months earlier, Nishimura,
then 16, had won gold in the X Games, in
Minneapolis. Now the wheels had come
off just as her dream of stardom was gath-
ering speed. “ Skateboarding—it is my
life,” Nishimura says at a skate park in
her hometown of Tokyo. “I was terrified
that my career was over.”
Nishimura underwent reconstructive
ligament surgery and spent the next six
months in L.A. in painstaking rehabilita-
tion. But she eventually returned to com-
petition hungry to make up for lost time.
In January, Nishimura won gold at the
Street League Skateboarding champion-
ship in Rio de Janeiro, landing a physics-
defying “lipslide” trick in a blur of dyed
blond hair and cargo pants. Still just 18,
she’s on course to represent Japan when
the Olympics arrive in her homeland next
summer and skateboarding makes its
debut at the Games. It’s also Nishi mura’s
first time representing Japan on such a
level.“I am very excited,” she says.
Nishimura got her first taste of skat-
ing at the age of 7 after picking up her
father’s board, which was lying around
the house. Her older sister Kotone also
skates professionally, and the desire△
Nishimura performs a
backside feeble grind
at the Street League
Skateboarding world
championship in Rio
de Janeiro, on Jan. 1298 time October 21–28, 2019Next Generation Leaders