ToplineThis summer, some of the most young athletes in the history modern Olympic games are competing at Tokyo.Sky Brown from Great Britain competes in the women’s Park Final at an Olympic qualifying skateboard... [+] event held in Des Moines, Iowa earlier in this year. ASSOCIATED PRSThe Key FactsHend Zaza (12 years old), a Syrian table tennis prodigy, was Tokyo's youngest competitor. She lost 4-0 to Liu Jia in her first round match. Kokona Hiraki (12 years old), a Japanese skateboarder, is the second-youngest Tokyo Olympian. She is Japan's youngest ever to represent their country at a Summer Games. Hiraki is not the only child skateboarder in Tokyo. She will be competing against Sky Brown from Great Britain, who turned 13 last month. Sky Brown is Team GB's youngest Summer Olympics competitor. China's Quang Hongchan is also competing in the 10-meter platform women's event. She is just 14 years old. Canada's Summer McIntosh was 14 years old and set a new Canadian swimming records when she completed a 400m freestyle heat in 4 minutes 022.72. Katie Grimes (15 years old) is the youngest swimmer on the U.S. swimming team since Katie Ledecky (gold medal record holder), who was 15 when she competed in the Olympics. Now 24, Grimes has been called the future of the sport at the Olympic trials.Surprising FactDimitrios Loundras (10 years old) was the youngest Olympian to win a medal in modern games history. He is a Greek gymnast and helped his team win bronze in team parallel bars at 1896 Athens Summer Games. Loundras has never participated in any other Games but was an adult member of Greece's Olympic committee.TangentThe International Olympic Committee does not have a minimum age for Olympians, but each sport has its own eligibility requirements. For example, gymnasts must be 16 years to compete in the Games. Boxers must be 18 years. For Olympic skateboarding, there is no minimum age, which opens the doors for young competitors such as Hiraki and Brown.Important BackgroundThis year's Tokyo Games will see a record number of young athletes compete. The Games will proceed with strict protocols for preventing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic after years of delay due to the pandemic. Organisers announced that 137 Olympic athletes had tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday. This includes more than a dozen Olympians who were later pulled from competition.Continue readingForbes: See the Olympic debut of skateboarders and surfers in Tokyo (Forbes).Twelve-year-old Syrian table tennis prodigy, the youngest athlete at Tokyo Olympics, exits after first round (Forbes).Jon Rahm, a top golfer, is the latest to pull out of Tokyo Olympics due to Covid Here's The Complete List (Forbes).
