Jagger Eaton poses on the podium following the men's street finals at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 on July 25, 2021 in Tokyo.
Jagger Eaton strolled onto the late-night television stage wearing a pinstriped suit and shiny black boots, and sporting a hairstyle that host David Spade described as a wide mohawk.
And no, this time the 20-year-old from Mesa, Arizona, who became the first American to win an Olympic medal in skateboarding didn’t have his AirPods in his ears.
“I just cherished the moments,” the bronze medalist in men’s street skateboarding told Spade, the guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “It was so fun to be in Japan. Japan put on such an amazing contest and such an amazing event. Coming home and getting back to reality is a little different because reality as I know it is a little different now.”
Isn’t that the truth.
Eaton and Cory Juneau were two of the athletes that introduced many around the world to skateboarding when the sport made its Olympic debut at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Between the youth of the competitors, the camaraderie they showed and the incredible tricks they performed, it was a successful debut indeed. Viewers were fascinated, and both Eaton’s and Juneau’s medal-winning performances earned them a whole new slew of fans.
A quick rundown of Eaton’s Instagram shows:
• A photo of him holding his medal with Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg in the background
• Video of him throwing out the first pitch at an Arizona Diamondbacks game
• Photos and video of him in New York City for a “Today” show appearance as well as a helicopter ride over the Big Apple
He also posted video of him skating down the sidewalk with a pair of young fans (and giving them a moment they’ll always remember), writing, “These 2 rippers came out to see me on the @todayshow this morning and I couldn’t help myself but to skate a little with them!! Always beyond grateful for the support!!”
On “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” he talked about breaking his ankle in the semifinals of the last competition before the Olympics, and having to skate injured in order to make the team, as well as growing up in Arizona. His mom is Shelly Schaerer, a member of the U.S. national gymnastics team in the 1980s, and Geoff Eaton, and they ran a gymnastics school when he was young. After he and his brother started skateboarding, they built ramps anywhere they could find space at the facility, he said. That morphed into the Kids That Rip (KTR) skateboard school.
