is a

regular-footed Footedness is the natural preference of one's left or right foot for various purposes. It is the foot equivalent of handedness. While purposes vary, such as applying the greatest force in a certain foot to complete the action of kick as opposed t ...

Japanese professional street skateboarder. Nishimura represented Japan in the women's street event at the

2020 Olympic Games The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Biography

Born in Edogawa,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, Aori Nishimura started skating at the age of 7, in 2008. She made her professional debut when she was in fifth grade in a tournament organized by the All-Japan Skateboarding Association.

Professional skateboarding

In 2017, Nishimura won the Japan National Skateboarding Championship. Furthermore, she was the first athlete from Japan to win gold at the

X Games Minneapolis 2017 X Games Minneapolis 2017 is an Extreme sport, action sporting event that took place July 13–16, 2017, at U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. This X Games, Summer X Games was the first held in the Midwest and the first of two X ...

extreme sports event held in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. In October 2017, three months after her victory, Nishimura suffered an

ACL injury An anterior cruciate ligament injury occurs when the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is either stretched, partially torn, or completely torn. The most common injury is a complete tear. Symptoms include pain, an audible cracking sound during inju ...

in her left knee for which she had to undergo reconstructive ligament surgery and temporarily move away from skateboarding. After six months of rehabilitation, she returned to training in June 2018 and returned to competitions in July 2018. She was invited to the

Dew Tour The Dew Tour is an extreme sports circuit organized by the Adventure Sports Group, a subsidiary of American Media, LLC. History The tour was announced in late 2004, and made its debut in Louisville, KY in June 2005. The tour then made stops i ...

Long Beach tournament, where she was eighth among the eight participants. On that occasion she expressed her dissatisfaction with the results obtained; however, that same month, she would achieve an evolution and take the silver medal in the

X Games Minneapolis 2018 X Games Minneapolis 2018 was an action sporting event that took place July 19–22, 2018, at U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin Count ...

, where

Mariah Duran Mariah Duran (born December 14, 1996) is a goofy-footed American skateboarder. Skateboarding Duran entered her first skateboarding competition at the age of 13 in her hometown of Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vak� ...

took first place. In January 2019, in

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

, she was crowned world skateboarding champion in the

World Skateboarding Championship The World Skateboarding Championship is an annual competition of men's and women's park skateboarding and street skateboarding, organized by World Skate (WS). Until 2017, the two disciplines were contested in separate tournaments, known as the ...

, which was jointly organized by

World Skate World Skate is the only governing body in the world for all sports performed on skating wheels. The organisation is the successor of the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS) founded on the 21 of April 1924. Due to the 2022 Russia ...

and

Street League Skateboarding Street League Skateboarding (SLS) is an international skateboarding tournament series. The league features professional street skateboarders competing for the largest monetary prize in the history of skateboarding, and was founded by profession ...

(SLS). Nishimura eclipsed hometown favorite,

Letícia Bufoni Letícia Bufoni e Silva (born April 13, 1993) is a Brazilian-American professional street skateboarder. She is a six-time X Games gold medalist. Early life Bufoni was born in São Paulo. She began skating at age nine, and her grandmother bough ...

, who won the silver medal. Nishimura appears as one of the new playable skateboarders in the 2020 game ''

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 Tony may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer * Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leag ...

''.

Awards

* Bronze medal - World Skateboarding Championship (São Paulo, 2019) *Gold Medal - X Games Norway (2019) * Gold Medal - X Games Minneapolis (2019) * Women's world champion of street skateboarding (Street League Skateboarding Tournament, Rio, 2018) * Silver Medal -

* Bronze Medal - X Games Sydney - (2018) * Japanese Street Skateboarding Champion (2017) * Gold Medal -

Personal life

Aori has two sisters, who are also dedicated to skateboarding: Sana and Kotone. On 21 November 2020, she confirmed that she and Brazilian professional skateboarder Lucas Rabelo, from the

Flip Skateboards Flip Skateboards is a United States-based international skateboard company, co-owned by Jeremy Fox and Ian Deacon. The company produces skateboard hard goods (decks, wheels, bearings, completes, and hardware), soft goods (T-shirts, tops, sweatsh ...

Pro Team, had been

dating Dating is a stage of romantic relationships in which two individuals engage in an activity together, most often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the categor ...

for a year. The couple has been together since November 2019.

References

External links

*
Aori Nishimura
at The Boardr *
Meet Japanese prodigy Aori Nishimura
at

Olympic Channel Olympic Channel is an over-the-top Internet television service operated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was launched on August 21, 2016, alongside the closing of the 2016 Summer Olympics. The service aims to maintain year-round ...

(Video) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nishimura, Aori Living people 2001 births Female skateboarders Japanese skateboarders Japanese sportswomen Olympic skateboarders of Japan Skateboarders at the 2020 Summer Olympics X Games athletes 21st-century Japanese women