No. 1 female skateboarder in Oz eyes podium finish at Paris Games

She only turned 14 last month, but Chloe Covell is Australia’s number one female skateboarder and on track to represent her country at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Chloe created history last year as the youngest ever X Games* gold medallist in street skateboarding*. With Paris in her sights, she could next break a record set 68 years ago, for the youngest Australian Olympic gold medallist. The tiny Tweed Heads teen will be 14 years and four months at the Games; current record holder Sandra Morgan-Beavis* was 14 years and six months when she swam in the winning 4x100m freestyle relay team at the 1956 Olympics.

“Chloe’s one of those athletes who will keep breaking the ceiling* for herself,” said Australia’s skateboarding assistant coach and former competitor Kat Williams. “She’ll be able to achieve anything she puts her mind to.”

Chloe, a student at Palm Beach Currumbin State High School, has been skating from the moment she could balance.

To qualify as one of Australia’s 22-person skateboarding team, Chloe first has to compete at the Olympic qualifier urban series*, first in Shanghai* May 16-19, then Budapest* June 20-23.

“It’s definitely one of my biggest dreams and biggest goals to compete in the Olympics, and if I end up doing it, hopefully I can do really well and get a podium*, hopefully I can get a gold medal,” she said.

During the recent World Skateboarding Tour in Dubai*, Chloe produced a career-best 93.49 score in the semi-final. No female skater has ever earned a score that high. Scores are a combination of a skater’s best run score and two highest trick scores out of five and Chloe was ultimately beaten in the final by Japan’s Liz Akama, 270.84 to 267.29, claiming the silver medal.

Ms Williams helped coach the Australian team at the Tokyo Games, when skateboarding made its debut*, and first met Chloe several years ago.

“She is so tough and resilient*,” Ms Williams said. “She will slam into things – in skateboarding you’re constantly falling into concrete – and she’ll pull herself back up and do what she needs to do. She’s super strong and tough.

“It takes a certain type of person to really want to push through those times when it’s tough. And Chloe absolutely has that.”

Indeed, Chloe won gold at the Street League Skateboarding (SLS) event in Sydney last October after what her worst injury to date.

“I was trying a new trick and fell on to a sharp corner of a ledge,” she said. “I had to get two stitches in my knee, which wasn’t good. It was the day before the SLS. It was pretty cool to be badly injured and then win.

“I was a little bit scared but I just had to block it all out and focus on what I was doing. You get hurt a lot more if you’re not 100 per cent focused on what you’re doing.”

Her coach said Chloe “has that perfect balance of doing it for herself and the right reasons”.

“She’s able to have fun and also be so supportive of her peers and friends in that (contest) space, because she’s really competing against herself,” Ms Williams said.

For her part, Chloe loves nothing more than skating in the park with mates and is still coming to terms with her growing fame.

“Everything is just normal when I’m not skating, apart from people coming up to me saying, ‘You’re Chloe Covell’,” she said.

“But at school it’s pretty good, they’ve been really supportive, and my friends also. Whenever I’m at home I’m at school, and whenever I’m away, I just take my laptop and take stuff with me and try to do as much as I can.

“I just love skating and progressing and having fun with my friends, it’s been really fun. I just get inspiration off other competition skaters, other girls or boys, or direct from Instagram, I’ll see something and be like, ‘I want to try that.’

“Other times I’ll be with friends and just try a new trick and learn it. You make up whatever you want and try it. I have a lot of people around me, supporting me, but I guess it’s just believing in yourself.”

Insiders believe Covell will change the future for females in the sport.

“In the past, the skate industry was a very male-dominated* sport, but it’s changing really, really quickly,” Ms Williams said. “And it’s wild to think athletes under 18 are helping push that inspiration for the next generation.”

POLL

GLOSSARY

• X Games: founded in 1995 by leading American multiplatform sports entertainment network ESPN, the X Games features action sports including skateboarding, BMX, motocross, skiing and snowboarding
• street skateboarding: street style features tricks performed in a real or simulated urban environment with stairs, rails, ledges, and other obstacles
• Sandra Morgan-Beavis: freestyle swimmer who represented Australia at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Games and the 1960 Rome Olympics. At 14, she joined Dawn Fraser, Lorraine Crapp and Faith Leech to win the first ever medal by an Australian women’s swimming relay team at the Olympic Games she remains the youngest Australian gold medallist.
• breaking the ceiling: overcoming gender barriers that prevent access to success and promotion
• urban series: this inaugural Olympic Qualifier series in two parts (Shanghai and Budapest) is described as “a new series of festival-style events combining sport with urban culture”
• Shanghai: large port city metropolis in the eastern part of China
• Budapest: Hungary’s capital city, divided by the Danube River in landlocked Central Europe
• podium: a small, raised platform used at medal ceremonies and other official contexts like lectures and concerts
• Dubai: port city and capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dubai is known for luxury shopping and modern architecture
• debut: first appearance or showing, first occasion on which something or someone is included
• resilient: strong and recovering quickly after difficulty, damage, disappointment
• male-domination: refers to men having the most power, influence, members and profile in a society, sport, organisation or activity

EXTRA READING

Female skaters ramp up Olympic ambitions

Skater on track for a switch kickflip front board

How I skateboard without my legs

QUICK QUIZ

1. How has skateboarder Chloe Covell already made history?
2. Who holds the record as the youngest Australian Olympic gold medallist and in which event?
3. Who won gold at the recent World Skateboarding Tour and what were the final scores for gold and silver?
4. Where are the two forthcoming skateboarding Olympic qualifier events being held?
5. At which Olympics did skateboarding make its debut?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Has what it takes
Chloe’s coach and mentor says that she has what it takes to be the youngest Australian Olympic gold medallist in history, not just in the sport of skateboarding.

What are some of the traits Chloe possesses mentioned in the article, and traits she needs in general, to be so successful at such a young age?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Competing around the world at such a high level, at such a young age, would have its drawbacks.

What are some of the everyday things Chloe might miss out on or wish she could do if she wasn’t travelling the world skateboarding?

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
Imagine you were there during the event being discussed in the article, or for the interview.

Create a conversation between two characters from the article – you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don’t forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.

Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.