Chinese 14-year-old qualifies for Olympics, Brown bows out

PARIS: Yang Siqi, a 14-year-old from China, has become first surfer from her country and the youngest person to qualify for the sport at the Olympics after progressing into finals weekend at the world surfing games in Puerto Rico.

The schoolgirl beat British surf-skate phenomenon Sky Brown, 2020 Tokyo Olympian Brisa Hennessy from Costa Rica and Spain’s Janire Gonzalez-Extabarri in Friday’s heat in tricky waves at the contest site of Arecibo.

The result means Brown has fallen short in her efforts to represent Britain in both surfing and skating at the Paris Olympics. Brown, still just 15, claimed a bronze in street skating at the Tokyo Games in 2021, the first Olympics to feature the sport.

Yang, who started surfing in 2018, claimed her spot among 24 women who will compete in the thumping tubes of Teahupo’o in Tahiti in six months.