An exclusive discovery+ Original Series documentary featuring skateboarding star Sky Brown is available to stream from 21stJuly on discovery+ with the games only a few days away.
Reaching the Skycharts the 12-year-old’s journey from baby boarder to Olympic gold medal hopeful. The 45-minute film includes never-before-seen footage of family time, skateboarding training and surfing practice sessions, giving viewers a unique insight into the life and personality of this talented young athlete, whose skill, resilience and ambition belie her years. It also documents Sky’s battle back to fitness after sustaining life-threatening injuries in a training accident in May 2020.
The discovery+ Original documentary was shot in the USA at Sky’s West Coast home,and a series of stunning locations across California and Texas.
In the documentary, the exuberant prodigy speaks candidly about her life, heritage, the training accident, and her ambition to win an Olympic gold medal for Team GB in the women’s Park discipline, which takes place on Wednesday 4 Augustat Ariake Urban Sports Park. The sky is currently ranked third in the world overall and will be Britain’s youngest ever summer Olympian.
Reaching the Sky features famous names from the world of skateboarding and surfing, including world number one street skateboarder Nyjah Huston and legendary surfing pro Rob Machadowho share their thoughts on the achievements and potential of the inspiring young phenomenon, who Huston declares is the future of skateboarding.
On making the exclusive discovery + documentary, Sky Brown said: “I’m so excited that people in so many countries are going to watch Reaching the Sky ondiscovery+.It was so much fun to film and I got to do some really cool stuff. Training with Nyjah Huston was crazy as he’s so amazing, and surfing with Rob Machado was unreal, he’s so stylish and so good.
“I was really young for the last Olympics and I didn’t really watch it,so I’m so excited for Tokyo. I want to be in the Olympics to inspire girls to get out there. I hope when they see me, a tiny girl just like them, going high, they’ll think they can do it too. I hope to get gold, that’s the dream, but if not,I still got in the Olympics and that’s really cool.”
The medal hopeful will be competing in skateboarding, one of the five sports making its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 alongside surfing, sport climbing, karate and baseball (men)/softball (women).
Sky, also an accomplished surfer, reveals exclusively in the documentary that she plans to compete in two disciplines at Paris 2024.
She says in Reaching the Sky: “I love surfing as much as I love skateboarding.In the Paris 2024 Olympics I want to be doing surfing and skateboarding.”
Scott Young, Head of Sports Production and Content, Discovery Sports, said: “Sky Brown is a supremely talented young athlete whose breath-taking skills, fearlessness and personality make her a true star, with an amazing dream. Her story is captivating, and we are so excited to have been able to collaborate with Sky on the hugely entertaining discovery+ Original Series documentary Reaching the Sky. The unique documentary charts Sky’s incredible rise to success and includes exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of her challenging road to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.”