Arisa Trew’s perfect reaction to her Paris Olympics gold medal is a reminder to us all about the joy of sport

Pleasure is addictive.

By the murky haze of world occasions that creeps ever steadily into our information cycles, the glint of gold glowing via the mire has turn out to be recurring morning studying via these Paris Olympics.

It is a pleasure of shared expertise. Of waking up each morning to see which Australian has received this time, and texting family and friends to radiate within the heat collectively.

This morning, that pleasure got here through a 14-year-old skateboarder.

And that golden glow burned stronger than simply about every other day earlier than it.

It wasn’t that Arisa Trew’s victory within the girls’s park last was any higher than the opposite 13 golds that Australia has collected thus far.

Each medal — gold, silver and bronze — has had its distinctive story behind it, from Noémie Fox lastly securing her second within the highlight to Saya Sakakibara placing behind years of household heartache to face atop the BMX world.

However what Trew dropped at the nation on Wednesday morning was that further shot of euphoria that comes from a child that simply bloody loves her sport.

Unjaded by the minimize and thrust and stress of competitors, not wearied by the world and its methods.

Only a lady along with her skateboard, her mates, and an amazing huge gold medal hung round her neck.

“It feels wonderful to have it (the medal). It has been my aim since watching the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and that impressed me and made me need to come to this Olympics and simply get to the rostrum, which is, like, wonderful,” Trew informed ABC Information Breakfast, peppering ‘like’ into each sentence in lieu of the ‘ums’ that the older of us have a tendency to make use of.

“I imply, I am simply going to maintain skating and having enjoyable and pushing myself to get higher.

“All of my buddies are actually excited for me. I’ve obtained so many messages from all of them. I have not even checked all of them. And I simply miss all of them a lot.”

This wasn’t an athlete that spoke of the method and the journey and the ‘full credit score to the coaches’.

This was an athlete who climbed the mountain and reached the top whereas smelling the flowers alongside the best way.

However to color Trew as somebody who floated via this competitors with a skip and a hop and a track her coronary heart could be a discredit to the fortitude she confirmed all through. 

With sure methods, at sure angles, the scrapes and scars of the laborious yards of her sport present purple and uncooked on her younger legs.

And on her first run within the battle for gold, that unpredictable, thrill-chasing nature of skateboarding — arguably the best of the Olympic occasions — nearly introduced all of it unstuck.

Tumbling to the concrete, she scored 35.53 to have her chasing the pack with two runs left to push her option to the entrance.

On her second run, she climbed into the bronze medal spot with a 90.11.

On her last shot at claiming glory, {the teenager} got here up clutch and nailed a 93.18, seeing off fellow youngsters Cocona Kiraki of Japan and Sky Brown of Staff GB.

This wasn’t path of least resistance. It was danger and reward. Frustration and energy. But it surely was a lot enjoyable to look at.

“Within the competitors, I fell on my first run, which was sort of annoying as a result of it was on a fairly primary trick,” she stated.

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“However my second run, I landed, which I used to be pleased with, and I used to be sitting within the prime three. So I simply needed to land my final run with end result, simply to know that I used to be secured into the rostrum. 

“With that run, I made it into first and it was simply the ready sport to see if I stayed there.”

When requested if she was nervous, the reply was easy.

“Probably not.”

She elaborated that she simply treats the Olympics — the most important sporting occasion on the globe, the eyes of the world centered squarely in a single place — as a little bit of a run round with mates.

“I imply, like, once I’m within the competitors, I simply fake that I am nonetheless in warm-up or simply skating with my buddies for enjoyable,” Trew stated.

“It is simpler than pondering that I am in an precise competitors.”

And in that mindset is the place the magic of this explicit gold medal sparkled at its brightest.

Trew introduced along with her an angle that all of us as soon as had as youngsters — that sport at its very coronary heart is good-natured enjoyable, invented and designed to raise our spirits and enhance our dopamine.

In that smiling face that greeted us all on Wednesday morning, all of us noticed part of us that all of us as soon as had and perhaps do not acknowledge as a lot anymore as we should always.

That a part of us that may push apart the creeping anxiousness of a world that appears doomed to make us really feel a little bit bit terrible. That a part of us that ignores the unhealthy and focuses on the nice. That a part of us that sees sport for what it’s and what it could actually do for us all.

That sport is pleasure.

And that pleasure is addictive.