PHOENIX — Paige Heyn already has a lot to show for her relatively short but incredibly successful career on a skateboard.
She's only 16 years old, but she's racked up the awards and is considered one of the best in her sport.
Heyn has been skateboarding for the majority of her life. At 4 years old, her uncle gave her a skateboard as a gift. She started skating in her neighborhood and then when she was 8, she signed up for lessons at KTR, an indoor skate park in the Valley.
It wasn't long until people started to notice, she's really good.
"Random people at the skate park would be like, oh - you're really good. How old are you? said Heyn. "I'm 8, 9. And they're like, oh what?"
Heyn kept getting better and started entering local competitions and winning.
Then the competitions started getting bigger and farther from Arizona. It really didn't set in that she was that good until 2019.
"I got invited to a world championship in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2019 and that's when I was like, oh wait, this is big," said Heyn. "It's really happening. I should focus on it a little more since it might take me somewhere."
That somewhere is the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Heyn recently qualified for Team USA. She is one of the youngest Olympians representing the US this year.
But her Olympic dreams almost didn't come true.
Back in December, Heyn thought it was game over. She fractured her ankle during a competition in Tokyo. She went into rehab and just a mere three months later, she was back on the board, learning to skate again.
"It was really hard mentally to get through all of that," said Heyn. "I was super bummed. It was at the end of the year, I had a great year, so good in contest and then in the contest I fractured my ankle, and I was just so sad."
Heyn is healed up now and is ready for Paris. During the games, she'll be judged on her most impressive tricks that meet the criteria for difficulty, speed and range of moves. All of it will be done in just two 45-second runs.
"I'm super excited," said Heyn. "It's been a dream so I can't believe it's coming true and a little nervous because it's pretty big and I just want to do my best and have fun."
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