Brighton Zeuner is an Americanprofessional skateboarder. A native of Encinitas, California, she has two X Games gold medals in skateboard park, with her first title in 2017 making her the youngest champion in X Games history at just over 13 years old. She is also the youngest ever X Games competitor, having skateboarded at the age of eleven in 2016. She has become a regular at the Vans Park Series events. She wins competitions with high-flying and twisting tricks and strong fundamentals as she moves over obstacles in the park. At the 2018 X Games, she already had the high score when she decided to try and up her score to win the gold. Zeuner is among the 16 members of the inaugural U.S.A Skateboarding National Team announced in March 2019. Zeuner will compete to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in the Women's Park division.
Early life
Brighton Zeuner is from San Diego, California. Her father and her brother Jackson got her into skateboarding when her father returned to the hobby and wanted Jackson to come along as well. She would practice at home until she got her own skateboard. Her brother wanted a vert ramp so the parents got a vert ramp for the kids which helped Brighton a lot to progress fast at a very young age. She soon became a better skateboarder than her brother and started to love competing. Being a teenager while being an elite athlete means Zeuner has to balance schoolwork with her competition. She has found a school that gives her flexibility as she tries to reach her goals in skateboarding. "It’s five times a week, there’s a little homeschooling, but it's cool because the teachers understand when you have to go and why," she said. "They try to get you caught up before you leave because there’s no such thing as doing work when you're at an event. They understand that."
Career
In 2016, she began competing professionally. She joined the cast of the series Camp Woodward. The same year in August, she became the first ever Vans Park Series World Champion, just after breaking another history milestone as the youngest female athlete to ever compete at the X-Games with the age of 11. In 2017, she became the youngest gold medalist of all-time at X Games Minneapolis when she won Women's Skateboard Park the day after her 13th birthday. A year later, she became the youngest back-to-back gold medalist with another win at X Games Minneapolis 2018. She then was nominated for the ESPN's ESPY award for Best Female Action Sports Athlete but the award went to fellow nominee and Olympic gold medalistChloe Kim. Skateboarding will be a sport at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She is a potential gold medalist for Team USA. Brighton's training regiment includes proper movement literacy in the primal patterns, basic total body strength training, force production and deceleration skills and anaerobic endurance training.
