Yang enrolls at school of hard knocks to chase Olympic dream

Despite a hard fall on her knees, following a crash on her right shoulder, Yang Kaiqi got straight back up, picked up her skateboard — that seemed to be almost as big as her — and composed herself for another try.

It was the women's street semifinal at the National Games, which ended up, almost cruelly, with Yang being the only one among 15 riders that failed to land any of her big tricks, eventually finishing bottom and missing out on the cut for the top-eight final.

Try again and fail better — that's how progression works — and how most of the biggest names in skateboarding have developed — a lesson that little Yang has learned the tough and, in this sport, the most common way.

"I got carried away by my nerves and I didn't skate even close to my best," Yang, known as Coco to her friends, said with tears welling up in her eyes after the semifinal in Huizhou, Guangdong province, on Nov 10.

"I didn't feel well in the warm-ups, while all the older girls skated so well, which made me even more nervous."

Despite not being able to finish where she'd expected to, Coco has left her mark on the quadrennial sporting gala as the youngest-ever contender, at the age of 10, to qualify for skateboarding's street discipline at the Games.

In a sport where young prodigies shine brightly, the early start to the competitive careers of Coco and her peers, backed by better training facilities and a more encouraging view of the sport, has signified Chinese riders' huge potential at the international level.

The sport's Olympic inclusion has also proved a game-changer in China, where Olympic success matters a lot in the allocation of resources and funding of talent cultivation, as well as governing body officials' assessment within the State-run sports system.

And, of course, that matters a lot in changing the perception of parents.

"We didn't expect it, but she told us that she's been dreaming of it since she saw it at the Tokyo Games," Coco's father Yang Hongwei said of his daughter's aspiration of one day skating at the Olympics.

"So little, yet harboring so big a dream, she's proved to us that she is committed to the sport. As parents, I guess all we can do is support her without hesitation," said Yang, who works at an AI technology company in Beijing.

Since first being drawn to the sport as a six-year-old at a skateboarding show in her home city of Taiyuan, Coco has grown addicted to her stylish hobby. She started by taking two weekend training classes, before adding two more on weekdays last year.

Inspired by her fellow street rider Cui Chenxi's fourth-place finish at last year's Paris Olympics, Coco landed a breakthrough of her own by winning the girls' under-10 group at the national junior championships in Tianjin in August last year.

The national team called her up in February to join the training camp for the new Olympic cycle, making her the youngest selectee on the 16-girl roster.

In a bold, yet understandable, decision, Coco's parents have moved the entire family to Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, where the national training camp is based, so that Coco can devote more of her time to mastering the board, while still being able to balance her schoolwork and other hobbies.

"Her mother is always with her, and I am considering finding a job in Nanjing, or Shanghai, to be there too," said Yang Hongwei.

With so much support and so much at stake, Coco understands she's perhaps chosen an even more challenging pathway than her schoolmates, yet, she's embraced it with gusto.

"Yes, I am," she said when asked if she's ready to accept the many falls on her journey to the international stage.

"I just want to compete at the Olympics and see how far I can go."