Skateboarding is making its debut at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and with this event comes the time-honoured tradition of skateboard bails, an absolute staple of the sport.
Bails are what skateboarders call crashes and – if you’ve never seen skateboarding before – they can often be very unpredictable and have painful consequences.
Take for instance Peruvian skater Angelo Caro Narvaez who, after pulling off a nice looking lipslide on a rail during the street event, just happened to lean a bit too far back, causing the board to shoot out from underneath his feet. What happened next would make any man, woman or child on Earth wince in pain.
💥 That's gotta 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓 😱
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) July 25, 2021
Angelo Caro Narvaez won't want to watch this back 🙈🛹#Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/qcnB98GBgZ
Narvaez looked to be in a brief bit of pain but soon got up and seemed to be ok. The crash, however, meant he was only awarded a 1.01 for his first run in the preliminary rounds but he still managed to make it to the final.
Despite being the lowest-ranked seeded skater in the final, the 21-year-old managed to recover and went on to finish fifth overall, outranking Nyjah Huston of the USA, one of the best skaters on the planet.
Needless to say, despite his accident, Narvaez managed to win a lot of people’s hearts and deserves to be better known than the guy who had THAT crash.
Never give up, Angelo Caro 👏 🇵🇪 pic.twitter.com/221wGOEpmr
— Warriors of Peru (@PeruvianHeroes) July 25, 2021
This is Peruvian skateboarder Angelo Caro Narvaez. Just figured that if we're all going to see the poor guy nutshot himself in the Olympics, we should be able to know his name and wish him well. pic.twitter.com/ghHmtz0HOO
— Jesse Spector (@jessespector) July 25, 2021
this man—Angelo Caro of Peru—slammed gooch-first into a metal railing at top speed
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) July 25, 2021
AND THEN CAME BACK TO FINISH IN FIFTH PLACE
AN OLYMPIC LEGEND https://t.co/yK9GzTOWpV
Angelo Caro is an example of how things can go bad at first, but there is an opportunity to fix it and make it back. What a man!!
— Renato the Sun (@renato_sun) July 25, 2021
A lesson that hopefully the Peru national team will know in the upcoming qualifying matches, like so in the 2018 cycle!!
Wherever he finishes, Angelo Caro Narvaez has been awesome here today. What a performance from a major underdog.
— Sam (@SamJGollings) July 25, 2021
Incidentally, the first-ever skateboarding event at the Olympics was won by Japan’s Yuto Horigome. He was then followed by 13-year-old Momiji Nishiya, also of Japan, who took gold in the women’s street event.
