Nyjah Huston Preps For Skate Of A Lifetime At Tokyo Olympics 2021

LAGUNA BEACH, CA —The Tokyo Summer Olympics has been a long time coming for Laguna Beach resident Nyjah Huston, 26. Huston has what it takes to bring home the gold in the first-ever street skateboarding event at the Summer Olympics.

For almost a year, Huston has quarantined at home in Laguna Beach, with a canyon and Pacific view he shares from time to time on his Instagram account. He practices skateboarding at his favored personal skate park in San Clemente, he told Wall Street Journal Magazine last summer. You can also find him on the streets, at empty schools, practicing to make perfect.

He's had an additional year to get it right.

The Tokyo Olympic games, originally scheduled for 2020, were delayed due to the pandemic. Skateboarding will make its debut as an Olympic sport, with Huston among the favored to excel.

While waiting for the 2021 Olympics to arrive, Huston pushes himself at every opportunity, and even questions life, the universe, and everything from the picture window of his Laguna Beach home. Still, on his Olympics profile, he considers himself a Davis, California native.

Huston is a middle child, with two older brothers, and a younger brother and sister, his bio states. He's a strict vegan and credits his healthy eating to solid bones, "having never broken a bone in his life," his bio page says.

At 7 years old, he had his first sponsor and distinguishing himself as the “One to Watch.” Now, he is seen as possibly the "best contest street skater of all time," his bio states.

Nyjah owns the most Street gold (10) and most Street medals (16) in X Games history. He devotes his free time to his personal charity, Let It Flow, a growing non-profit organization bringing clean water and sanitation to communities in need all over the world.

"When you get to the point where you’re having success and you’re doing what you love, the natural next step in life should be to do whatever you can to help make other people’s lives better," Huston says.

Huston has done much strength training, street skating, and stunt filming during the shutdown, he tells CNBC Make It in a recent interview. All while waiting for the word that the games will take place.

His good fortune comes from hard work and practice routines, self-discipline, and his ability to set nerves aside for the sport he loves, he says.

His Instagram page proves it, as time and again, he shares video clips of his perfect moves and the real-life hard knocks that come with trying, failing, and trying again.

"It comes down to who can deal with the nerves and who can deal with the pressure," he said. "This is the biggest contest ever, and I'm trying not to put that much pressure on myself."

He looks at upcoming competitions just like any other competition, he tells CNBC, but that might change when he sees the Olympic rings, the pavilions, and the fanfare associated with the games.

For the California native, there is nothing like practicing a move, working on it for hours, and finally landing it. Even if he does sometimes wonder how he got here.

As for this summer? He says "(The Olympics) is going to be the biggest contest ever."

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