Heimana Reynolds poses for a photo with his gold medal at the ANOC World Beach Games on Oct. 15, 2019 in Doha, Qatar.
A tremendous year got even better for Heimana Reynolds after the 21-year-old won the men’s skateboard park event at the Association of National Olympic Committees World Beach Games on Tuesday in Doha, Qatar.
Recently crowned world champion in park skateboarding, one of two disciplines within the sport that will make its Olympic debut at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, Reynolds scored 69.00 points on his second run of the competition to surpass Puerto Rico’s Steven Pineiro on the top of the leaderboard. With no one able to beat his run, Reynolds won the gold medal.
It’s another success in a string of them this year that have catapulted the Honolulu, Hawaii, native to the top of the Olympic rankings despite not being named to the four-man national team when it was announced back in March. He also won an Olympic qualifier back in July before following up 2018’s silver medal at the park world championships with a gold this year, establishing himself as a favorite going into next summer.
As of mid-September following his world title Reynolds had 120,000 points in the world Olympic qualifying rankings, with Brazil’s Luiz Francisco a distant second with 88,000. The closest American was Thomas Schaar in sixth place with 32,770 points. A maximum of three U.S. men will be able to compete in skateboarding park at the Olympics.
Reynolds told a local television reporter in Oahu when interviewed in 2009 at the age of 10 that his dream was to be a professional skateboarder, compete in the X Games and the Olympics, even though the sport was not yet on the schedule at that time.
The Beach Games feature a number of new Olympic sports, including 3x3 basketball, skateboarding, open water swimming, karate and sport climbing.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.